Few outsiders realize that student illness is frequently, and ironically, a by-product of medical training. This unique study by a medical doctor and trained anthropologist debunks popular myths of expertise and authority which surround the medical establishment and asks provoking questions about the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge within the field. In detailing all levels of basic training in a London medical school, the author describes students' 'official' activities (that is, what they need to do to qualify) as well as their 'unofficial' ones (such as their social life in the bar). This insider's expose should prompt a serious reconsideration of abuses in a profession which has a critical influence over untold lives. In particular, it suggests that the structures and discourses of power need to be re-examined in order to provide satisfactory answers to sensitive questions relating to gender and race, the dialogue between doctor and patient and the mental stability of students under severe stress.

Few outsiders realize that student illness is frequently, and ironically, a by-product of medical training. This unique study by a medical doctor and trained anthropologist debunks popular myths of expertise and authority which surround the medical establishment and asks provoking questions about the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge within the field. In detailing all levels of basic training in a London medical school, the author describes students' 'official' activities (that is, what they need to do to qualify) as well as their 'unofficial' ones (such as their social life in the bar).
This insider's expose should prompt a serious reconsideration of abuses in a profession which has a critical influence over untold lives. In particular, it suggests that the structures and discourses of power need to be re-examined in order to provide satisfactory answers to sensitive questions relating to gender and race, the dialogue between doctor and patient and the mental stability of students under severe stress.

Written predominantly for those working in the mental health services, this book aims to extend the theory and practice of psychiatry. The chapters explore the culture of psychiatry as well as seeking to reaffirm the importance of anthropology for understanding psychiatric practice and psychological disorders in both socio-historical and individual contexts. The development and use of psychiatric diagnostic categories, the nature of expressed emotion within cross-cultural contexts and the religious context of perceptions of pathological behaviour are all refracted through an anthropological perspective. The second part of this book focuses clinical applications.