2012/01/01 by Berit Mohr, Mohr, Berit, Peter Hovermann +3
Arts and Humanities · Health Professions · Medicine · #2 #610 Medical sciences #Empathy and Medical Education #Ethics in medical practice #Gegenübertragung #Medical History and Research #Medicine #Medizinethnologie #Obdachlose #Querschnittsbereich #teilnehmende Beobachtung
paper · doi:10.3205/zma000836
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19
This paper examines the new teaching concept "Providing medical care on the fringe of society: Participant observation and change in perspectives" in the context of the interdisciplinary field of Querschnittsbereich 2/Q 2 (the transdisciplinary section under AOÄ, the German Regulations for licensed physicians) that explores the history, theory and ethics of medicine. The disciplinary approach usually adopted in Q 2 is supplemented with concepts from medical anthropology; in addition students will be exposed to people in extreme social situations. The aim is to make students aware of and invite them to reflect upon: the importance of participant observation in the specific on-site setting of medical thinking and acting; the importance of the subjectivity of all those involved in doctor/patient interaction; and the fact that key medical terms (such as the "need" as seen by the physician vs. the need as seen by the patient) are essentially context-dependent in their interpretation. At a more general level students will learn how to put themselves in the position of different protagonists in a range of medical settings, and practice the skill of reflecting critically upon putative conceptual/theoretical and normative-ethical assumptions in medicine.