Reading Assignments for UCONJ International Health
This quarter's theme will be the exploration of cross-cultural issues that emerge when interacting in international health activities in developing countries. This theme also gives us an opportunity to understand that you don't need to go to an exotic country to experience and learn about international health.
We can find these cross culture issues right here at home in our clinics and hospitals that serve patients from different countries of origin. In that vein, the primary reading material for this course is a book that describes this phenomenon.
"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
A Hmong Child, her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures"
Written by Anne Fadiman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright 1997
In addition to this book, there are several short readings that are linked below. These readings as scanned in for your convenience and you should look at them as well.
Brief required readings:
- Underlying Cause: Ron Pust, M.D.
This is a description of the matter of fact dilemmas and challenges experienced in the field by an experienced health care provider in Papua, New Guinea. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it graphically portrays the cross-cultural challenges and public health issues known as the underlying cause.
- For 80 Cents More Special Report, Health care in poor countries, The Economist, August 17th, 2002.
This brief paper describes the issues of emerging infectious dieseases in the globalization of the planet.
- The Incredible Shrinking Planet: Ann Marie Kimball, M.D.
This brief paper describes the issues of emerging infectious dieseases in the globalization of the planet.
- "Medical Tourism as Medical Harm to the Third World: What, Why, for Whom"?: Steven Bezruchka, M.D.
"Maybe just dropping in and 'helping out' is not much help at all!"
Recommended background readings
Finally, because many of you have asked over the years about background reading for the World Health Organization, USAID, etc., the following readings are scanned in that can provide you a broader awareness of the context of international health issues.