Dear Dr Ellenberger,
I am a doctor as well as a writer. You might be interested in my recent memoir:
Suburban Shaman: Tales freom Medicine's Frontline (see:
www.hammersmithpress.co.uk/suburbanshaman ), which in March was selected for
broadcast by the BBC as a 'Book of the Week'.
Best wishes,
Cecil Helman
His original presentation is here:
http://www.arnoldpublishers.com/helman/default.htm
Dr Cecil G. Helman is Professor of Medical Anthropology in the
Department of Social Sciences and Law at Brunel University, and Senior Lecturer
in the Department of Primary Care & Population Sciences, Royal Free & University
College Medical School, University of London.
He is one of the leading international experts on medical anthropology,
cross-cultural health care, and the cultural dimensions of health, illness and
medical care.
He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, where he graduated as a doctor at the
University of Cape Town Medical School, and then took a post-graduate degree in
social anthropology at University College London. In 1983/84 he was a Visiting
Fellow in Social Medicine & Health Policy at Harvard Medical School, Boston,
USA, where he taught clinically-applied medical anthropology, and carried out
research on psychosomatic disorders.
Dr Helman has been invited to lecture in many different countries, and has been
a visiting professor at several institutions, including as Hooker Distinguished
Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology, McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (1991), and Visiting Professor in the Multicultural
Health Program, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2001) He has
also been a visiting lecturer in medical anthropology at Cambridge University,
and a guest lecturer at many medical schools and universities, including Brown
University, Michigan State University, Willamette University, University of
Geneva Medical School (Switzerland), Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium),
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), and University of Cape Town
and University of the Western Cape (South Africa). He has also given seminars at
the World Health Organisation in Geneva.
He has presented research papers, and been a key-note speaker, at meetings of
many learned societies and organisations world-wide, including in the USA the
American Anthropological Association, the Society for Applied Anthropology, and
the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, and in Great Britain the Royal
College of Psychiatrists, The Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal College of
General Practitioners, the Institute of Child Health, the Institute for Nursing
Studies, the Transcultural Psychiatry Society, the Society for the Social
History of Medicine, the British Association for Medical Humanities, and the
Oxford University Forum for Medical Humanities.
He has been involved in international medical aid programmes, funded by the
British Council, with the Community Medicine Program, Conceicao Hospital, Porto
Alegre, Brazil (1989-1991); the Department of Primary Care, University of Cape
Town, South Africa (1997-2000); and the Department of Family Medicine,
University of Transkei, South Africa (1997-2004).
Dr Helman’s research – in Britain, the USA, Brazil, and South Africa, has
focused mainly on patients’ health beliefs; issues in communication between
health professionals and their patients; and the social, cultural and economic
context of health, illness, and medical care.
In addition to Culture, Health and Illness, Dr Helman has published a book of
essays The Body of Frankenstein’s Monster: Essays in Myth & Medicine (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1992), a collection of medical writings Doctors and Patients: An
Anthology (Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press, 2003), and two books of poetry. He
has also published numerous articles in academic journals, including in the
Lancet; British Medical Journal; Social Science & Medicine; Culture, Medicine &
Psychiatry; Family Medicine; British Journal of General Practice; and
Anthropology Today.
His new (2006) homepage: http://www.cecilhelman.com