A mother's extraordinary search for healing among the medical practices of East and West. When Alexandra Todd's 21-year-old son is diagnosed with cancer, the family embarks on an odyssey that ultimately steers an expansive course between the gleaming technologies of traditional Western medicine and the gentle arts of alternative healing.
Effective communication between doctors and patients is essential to good health care, yet patients increasingly complain of impersonal, overly technical medical treatment. Physicians, on the other hand, report that their patients have unrealistic expectations and ignore recommendations. Problems in doctor-patient communication increase when the patient is a woman. Social values and attitudes toward reproduction, women's bodies, and femininity are powerful, if subtle, influences on health care delivery. For over two years, Alexandra Dundas Todd audiotaped and observed communications between gynecologists and observed communications between gynecologists and women patients in a private practitioner's office and in a community clinic. Intimate Adversaries provides a close-up view of what takes place in medical interactions centered on reproductive care. Todd is especially sensitive to the difficulties caused by the different perspectives of doctor and patient. Whereas doctors usually concentrate on a biomedical approach, patients view their biological concerns as embedded in broader contextual experiences. Women tell stories about their health and reproduction to communicate these comprehensive concerns. When the stories are ignored, the women are at risk of receiving inadequate medical care. Writers in political economy and feminist theory have contributed in-depth studies of society and medicine. Less has been said about the relation ship among the epistemological roots of science, the development of the medical model, the treatment of women patients, and influences on diagnostic decision-making. It is the relationship of a scientific world view to modern medicine and to women, as well as analyses of specific interactions, that are the core of this book.
Todd, a medical sociologist, describes her son1s compelling struggle against Cancer in strong personal language. At the same time, she also reflects on larger issues of U.S. health care such as social class and accessibility to treatment, conventional medicine1s often intractable power structure, and the effects of globalization on medical knowledge. Offers practical info. on macrobiotic foods and recipes, cookbooks, mail order companies, org1s. for nutritional education and referrals, selected readings on mind/body connections and Chinese and holistic medicine, and addresses of stress reduction and Chinese/holistic medical centers.
A mother's extraordinary search for healing among the medical practices of East and West. When Alexandra Todd's 21-year-old son is diagnosed with cancer, the family embarks on an odyssey that ultimately steers an expansive course between the gleaming technologies of traditional Western medicine and the gentle arts of alternative healing.
Effective communication between doctors and patients is essential to good health care, yet patients increasingly complain of impersonal, overly technical medical treatment. Physicians, on the other hand, report that their patients have unrealistic expectations and ignore recommendations. Problems in doctor-patient communication increase when the patient is a woman. Social values and attitudes toward reproduction, women's bodies, and femininity are powerful, if subtle, influences on health care delivery. For over two years, Alexandra Dundas Todd audiotaped and observed communications between gynecologists and observed communications between gynecologists and women patients in a private practitioner's office and in a community clinic. Intimate Adversaries provides a close-up view of what takes place in medical interactions centered on reproductive care. Todd is especially sensitive to the difficulties caused by the different perspectives of doctor and patient. Whereas doctors usually concentrate on a biomedical approach, patients view their biological concerns as embedded in broader contextual experiences. Women tell stories about their health and reproduction to communicate these comprehensive concerns. When the stories are ignored, the women are at risk of receiving inadequate medical care. Writers in political economy and feminist theory have contributed in-depth studies of society and medicine. Less has been said about the relation ship among the epistemological roots of science, the development of the medical model, the treatment of women patients, and influences on diagnostic decision-making. It is the relationship of a scientific world view to modern medicine and to women, as well as analyses of specific interactions, that are the core of this book.
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