Medicine & Society

A First-Year Ampersand Program

Take a deep dive into medical anthropology – the study of human health across culture, time, and location with particular attention paid to cultural, social, political, economic and ethical dimensions.

The Medicine & Society Program was created to address the needs of students who have an interest in both medicine and the greater good of society.  Incoming freshmen are selected each summer to join the four-year program which consists of a yearlong seminar in medical anthropology, a community-based health internship or service learning activity, several courses in medical anthropology, and a senior thesis or capstone project. 

The Medicine & Society Program has its intellectual and programmatic roots in the field of medical anthropology, which is broadly defined as the study of human health and illness across culture, time, and location.  Medical anthropologists examine the role of culture and society in shaping experiences with illness.  The discipline seeks an understanding of such wide-ranging issues as responses to health threats, alternative medicine in modern society, the human genome project, the ethics of genetic testing, social and behavioral factors affecting infectious diseases, and the causes of health disparities in the developing world.  Individual health is seen within a broader framework of social networks and the larger public and private efforts to prevent disease and promote health, both domestically and internationally. 

For students interested in exploring relationships among culture, behavior, and health, the Medicine & Society Program offers a pathway from the perspective of the social sciences.  Addressing the important social and cultural foundations of health and illness in human societies, this program also emphasizes service and research at health-related sites throughout St. Louis. The success of the Medicine & Society program is derived from the ability of the student scholars to engage with each other and the St. Louis community. Students maximize the impact of the program through fulfilling the three pillars of the program, service, mentorship and research. A recent survey completed by Medicine & Society scholar Alex Tward (BA '22) found that between 2018 and 2022, Medicine & Society members have conducted over 20,000 hours of research, 8,500 hours of service, held over 30 positions of leadership in on-campus groups, and have contributed to over 25 peer-review publications.

How to Sign Up

Signing up for a First-Year Program is a structured process designed to help match you with a program that best fits your interests. Ampersand Programs require a short essay responding to a program-specific prompt.

If you plan to rank this Ampersand Program, prepare a 250-500 word essay that responds to the following prompt: How do you understand the relationship between healthcare and society/community and what do you want to learn to make you a better advocate/provider?

Learn More About Sign-Ups

Ampersand Program Courses

Semester 1: Medicine & Society 1

This course provides the basic foundation in medical anthropology and cultural anthropology for students enrolled in the Medicine and Society Program. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the central themes and theoretical approaches employed by medical anthropologists to study health and illness in cross-cultural perspective. Topical areas include analyses of disease, illness and sickness at micro and macro levels; impact of personal and interpersonal factors on health; health effects of social, political, and economic factors; relationship of anthropology to biological and social science approaches; ecology of health and development; and cross-cultural health studies of language, gender, and race/ethnicity. Note: Content for this course overlaps with and replaces Anth 160 for students enrolled in the Medicine and Society Program. Open only to students enrolled in the Medicine and Society Program.

Semester 2: Medicine & Society 2

This course is the required second-semester sequence of the introduction to medical anthropology and cultural anthropology for students enrolled in the Medicine and Society program. The course builds upon material introduced in Anthro 141, and it provides greater ethnographic context for the cross-cultural study of health and illness. Topical areas include analyses of disease, illness and sickness at micro and macro levels; the impact of personal and interpersonal factors on health; the health effects of social, political, and economic factors; the relationship of anthropology to biological and social sciences approaches; the ecology of health and development; and cross-cultural health studies of language, gender, and race/ethnicity.

Medicine & Society extends beyond the first year, offering classes for students to maximize the impact of the program through fulfilling the three pillars of the program, service, mentorship and research.

Ampersand Program Faculty

Anna Jacobsen

Anna Jacobsen

Director of Anthropology’s Medicine and Society Program

Anna Jacobsen is a sociocultural anthropologist who works on issues pertaining to faith, morality, and personhood among Somali refugee women living in exile in the Eastleigh neighborhood (estate) of Nairobi, Kenya.

AJ Jones

AJ Jones

Assistant Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology

AJ Jones (she/her) is a medical and psychological anthropologist interested in subjectivity formation and the socio-medicalized frameworks that animate experiences of bodily difference. Utilizing performance ethnography and multimodal methodologies, her research seeks to simultaneously explore and foster accessibility and care-oriented approaches in anthropology.