UNIB20013: Body, Mind and Medicine: A Dissecction

Tutorial assessments and participation comprising a collaborative tutorial exercise and micro-blogging tasks equivalent to 2000 words (or equivalent) (50%) assessed over the course of the semester, and a review essay of 2000 words (50%) due during the examination period.

Hurdle Requirement: Students are required to attend a minimum of 75% of classes in order to pass this subject. Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 10% per working day. After 5 working days late assessment will not be marked. In-class tasks missed without approval will not be marked. All pieces of written work must be submitted to pass this subject.

This breadth subject is full of science and biomedicine students, probably because "Medicine" is in the subject title already. That said, this subject dwells into the history of medicine. I found it very interesting - you not only learn how medicine was developed, but you are also exposed to a lot of alternative views of medicine. Some readings from the subject make you question whether we are better off with modern medicine or whether we are worse with it. Particularly, you'll be hammered on about how biomedicine has become very reductionist throughout the course of the subject.

The lectures were presented in the following blocks:

Mind and Body in the Courtroom: Psychiatry and the Law - explores the relationship with body and mind, responsibility and culpability

Making Medicine - the making of modern medicine and surgery, and how it has transformed our lives

Women's Business - women's health and illness, with a focus on childbirth

Bodies, Minds, and Madness - explores bodies, minds and psychiatry

Biomedicine and its Critics - critical views of biomedicine in contemporary society, and the persistence of complementary/alternative medicine

Tutes are pretty chill, you pretty much just discuss what the lectures were talking about. Later in the semester, tutes were used for you to work on your collaborative assignment with members of the group.

Each week, you'll have to write a blog entry of 150 words. All you have to do is pretty much discuss what the lectures were talking about, and provide a bit of your own opinion (back it up with extra readings of course). It's not a walk in the park to get H1 on every blog entry though. I guess you should just try look at the overriding themes of the subject (lol reductionism) and try tie that with whatever you were discussing during the week. The difficult part of this is to be concise and insightful at the same time (although in my experience you could get away with writing 170-190 words)

During the lectures, James presents series of "medical scandals". For your collaborative assignment, you'll be randomly assigned to construct a wiki for one of the scandals. You'll have to write a historical context, a timeline, a literature review, and an editorial. My group did the Cartwright Inquiry, which was very interesting. This is worth a fair chunk of your grade (20%), so make sure you plan and get it done early.

There is no examination for this subject, but there is a final critical essay that is worth 50% of your final mark. It involves writing a critical review of something that you can relate to the themes of the subject. For example, you can do a piece of literature, or you can do television shows like Scrubs, Greys Anatomy, blah blah blah. In all honesty I don't advise doing TV shows because it's difficult to completely relate it to the themes of BMM and provide an insightful analysis at the same time. I'd feel that most people would also get side-tracked by summarising the TV show, rather than critically analysing it.

I would recommend doing a piece of literature, because you can also find other readings to help you. I wrote my critical essay on Medical Nemesis by Ivan Illich, which was a very interesting and insightful critique of how the medical profession can harm society, rather than benefiting it. You'll find loads of internet resources to help you fluff through the obscure language of the book (it's very convoluted). You could also try write on other articles such as The Disappearance of the Sick Man from Medical Cosmology, by Jewson. James has mentioned this article many times since it emphasises the reductionism of biomedicine.

All in all, a great subject for those who have any sort of interest in the history of the medical field. You're not expected to regurgitate information in this subject, but you should try to analyse everything with respect to the overarching themes of the lectures.

Yes, with screen capture.

There were three lecturers for the subject.

Dr. James Bradley is the coordinator of the subject and also the main lecturer. He lectures for the bulk of the semester. I quite like listening to his accented English, and he's very nice and approachable. He's a medical historian so he does have a very firm grasp of what he's talking about.

Professor Joel Eigen is a lecturer from the US, and mainly lectures on the relationship between law and medicine. Particularly, he explores how insanity as a legal defense came to be used. He presented for the first 4 lectures.

Associate Professor Mark Salzberg comes in late in the semester to present the "Psychiatry" block of lectures. He particularly focuses on the history of psychiatry. The readings he uploaded onto the LMS weren't too useful though, in my opinion.

No practise exam.

4 out of 5

The prescribed textbook is The History of Medicine, but you never use it. Rather, many of the required readings are uploaded onto the LMS.

2x 1 Hour Lectures each week and 1x 1 hour tutorial for 10 weeks.

2013, Semester 2.

H2A (77)