Medicine and Culture: Revised Edition

This is a well written text that is unusual in that it applies the anthropological methods we often see applied to developing countries to developed countries. This is very much a personal but well informed view of this area and it is an interesting read. The only criticism I would make is that this and other such texts occasionally verge into minimizing the effects of individual differences and demographic characteristics in health beliefs and action in favor of "cultural" explanations. Who we are and what we do can be viewed through a range of lenses.

In Medicine and Culture, Payer describes what she sees as the spirit of the medical system in France, Germany, England, and the US. I say spirit, because she writes about the feel she got for the medical system in each while doing business and living abroad. She doesn't detail how the medicine is financed and regulated, and statistics are presented sparsely to illustrate points, and not flung at the reader. She is very much writing about the feel of medicine and how it interacts with culture in each country. This makes the subject matter less dated, because culture changes slowly, unlike specific medical procedures or government regulations. I read this a few years ago and I feel that it has given me some important perspective and insight into medicine, which helps me interpret other information that I get about medicine. It was a fast read and worthwhile, even if you came across the book while looking for a more concrete treatment of medicine in different countries.

Readers of this excellent book will wait in vain for an update as some reviewers have requested -- Lynn Payer died of breast cancer on September 22, 2001. So this will be it -- the insights she brings to the comparative study of health systems are thus all the more precious. I've lived in two of the countries she studied (UK and US) and been treated in a third (France) and the book rings true. An excellent addition to the library of anyone wishing to understand the strengths and the flaws of our health systems, and more importantly, why each system has different flaws!

Written from the point of view of a journalistand not a social scientist, this book isnevertheless a must read for readers interestedin medicine, culture, and sociology of science.If you are one of those persons who thinks medicine is a science, I think this book willmake a very surprising read. In particular,if you like the epistemological side of scientificinquiry, you could try to extend many of thediscussions of the book to other practices(social sciences, physics).My only regrett is that the author doesn't coverLatin American medicine. (Next edition?)

If you think conventional medicine is scientifically proven, read this book! Very enjoyable, easy to read and a must read for anyone who may ever need any medical treatment! The book shows some interesting facts, not speculation.