Cargando…

Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities

The welcome development of the veterinary humanities, and veterinary anthropology specifically, raises the question of its potential relationship with the now well-established field(s) of the medical humanities, and of medical anthropology. Although there are national variations, the term “medical h...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Desmond, Jane
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8964002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35359687
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.780482
_version_ 1784678113145257984
author Desmond, Jane
author_facet Desmond, Jane
author_sort Desmond, Jane
collection PubMed
description The welcome development of the veterinary humanities, and veterinary anthropology specifically, raises the question of its potential relationship with the now well-established field(s) of the medical humanities, and of medical anthropology. Although there are national variations, the term “medical humanities” generally refers to either the tapping of the humanities to improve medical education by developing, through engagement with the humanities like literature and visual art, skills in empathy, visualization and expressivity, or alternatively, it refers to the application of humanities approaches of cultural critique to the presumptions, practices and institutions of the human medical world to denaturalize the ideologies of knowledge that contemporary human medicine professions depend upon. This article reflects on the potential impact that the development of a veterinary medical humanities could have on the field of (human) medical humanities and vice versa. Could such a development force a re-conception of notions of agency, of consent, and of the position of “patient” when the (human based) medical humanities is expanded to include both human and veterinary medicine? What would the potential usefulness, or limitations, both in conceptual and in applied terms, be of constructing a multi-species notion of “medical humanities?” What can such a comparative approach offer to veterinary medicine, in practice and in terms of the curricula of veterinary training? To reflect on these questions, this article draws on my multiple years of fieldwork in veterinary clinics and classrooms to first lay out the constituent components of the formal practice of contemporary veterinary medicine (at least in the U.S.) in terms of the roles that species specificity and relations to humans play in the delivery of care, and then seeks to center the animal in these practices to ask questions about consent, resistance, veterinary obligation, and the role of finance in comparison with human medicine. These similarities and differences will form the basis for a consideration of the effects of enlarging the medical humanities to encompass more than one species.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8964002
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-89640022022-03-30 Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities Desmond, Jane Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science The welcome development of the veterinary humanities, and veterinary anthropology specifically, raises the question of its potential relationship with the now well-established field(s) of the medical humanities, and of medical anthropology. Although there are national variations, the term “medical humanities” generally refers to either the tapping of the humanities to improve medical education by developing, through engagement with the humanities like literature and visual art, skills in empathy, visualization and expressivity, or alternatively, it refers to the application of humanities approaches of cultural critique to the presumptions, practices and institutions of the human medical world to denaturalize the ideologies of knowledge that contemporary human medicine professions depend upon. This article reflects on the potential impact that the development of a veterinary medical humanities could have on the field of (human) medical humanities and vice versa. Could such a development force a re-conception of notions of agency, of consent, and of the position of “patient” when the (human based) medical humanities is expanded to include both human and veterinary medicine? What would the potential usefulness, or limitations, both in conceptual and in applied terms, be of constructing a multi-species notion of “medical humanities?” What can such a comparative approach offer to veterinary medicine, in practice and in terms of the curricula of veterinary training? To reflect on these questions, this article draws on my multiple years of fieldwork in veterinary clinics and classrooms to first lay out the constituent components of the formal practice of contemporary veterinary medicine (at least in the U.S.) in terms of the roles that species specificity and relations to humans play in the delivery of care, and then seeks to center the animal in these practices to ask questions about consent, resistance, veterinary obligation, and the role of finance in comparison with human medicine. These similarities and differences will form the basis for a consideration of the effects of enlarging the medical humanities to encompass more than one species. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8964002/ /pubmed/35359687 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.780482 Text en Copyright © 2022 Desmond. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Desmond, Jane
Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities
title Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities
title_full Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities
title_fullStr Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities
title_full_unstemmed Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities
title_short Medicine, Value, and Knowledge in the Veterinary Clinic: Questions for and From Medical Anthropology and the Medical Humanities
title_sort medicine, value, and knowledge in the veterinary clinic: questions for and from medical anthropology and the medical humanities
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8964002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35359687
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.780482
work_keys_str_mv AT desmondjane medicinevalueandknowledgeintheveterinaryclinicquestionsforandfrommedicalanthropologyandthemedicalhumanities