Series
Volume 1
The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession
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Obstetricians Speak
On Training, Practice, Fear, and Transformation
Edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar
345 pages, 21 illus., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-80073-828-7 $145.00/£99.00 / Hb / Published (June 2023)
ISBN 978-1-80073-830-0 $34.95/£27.95 / Pb / Published (June 2023)
eISBN 978-1-80073-829-4 eBook
Description
For the first time ever in a social science work, obstetricians tell their own stories of training, practice, fear, and transformation in this the first of the 3-volume series The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession.
These stories range from those of abortion providers to those of maternal-fetal medicine specialists. Several chapters tell the stories of obstetricians who have made paradigm shifts from technocratic to humanistic practices, the benefits and joys of these paradigm shifts, and the ostracism, bullying, and outright persecution these humanistic obstetricians have suffered.
This book is a must-read for students, social scientists, and all maternity care practitioners who seek to understand the ideologies and motives of individual obstetricians.
An excerpt from Kathleen Hanlon-Lundberg’s chapter:
Largely maligned in reproductive anthropological literature as callous—if not brutal—self-serving effectors of the over-medicalization of childbirth, most obstetricians whom I know and have worked with are devoted to providing respectful, individualized care to their patients.
Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Rice University, Houston, Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, and Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction, is a well-known medical/reproductive anthropologist and international speaker and researcher in transformational models in childbirth, midwifery, obstetrics, and reproduction.
Ashish Premkumar MD is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, as well as a maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist practicing at the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Illinois. He is also a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at The Graduate School at Northwestern University.
Subject: Medical AnthropologyGender Studies and Sexuality
Contents
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