Program Requirements

• GMS MA 700  History and Theory of Medical Anthropology, Pt. 1
• GMS MA 701  History and Theory of Medical Anthropology, Pt. 2
• GMS MA 710  Medical Anthropological and Qualitative Research Methods and Design
• GMS MA 770  IRB Proposal Development and Writing
• GMS MA 711/GMS MA S711  Summer Fieldwork, Pt. 1
• GMS MA 712/GMS MA S712  Summer Fieldwork, Pt 2
• GMS MA 734  Reading Ethnography in Medical Anthropology
• GMS MA 735  Writing Ethnography in Medical Anthropology
• GMS MA 742  Medical Anthropological and Qualitative Data Analysis
• GMS MA 785  Medical Anthropology Thesis Writing, Pt. 1
• GMS MA 786  Medical Anthropology Thesis Writing, Pt. 2

In addition to the required seminars and thesis-related requirements, students must also take a total of seven electives:

A minimum of three MACCP electives (although, of course, you can take all seven in the program!)

Up to 12 elective credits can be taken outside of the program, either as three 4-credit courses, or combinations of 2-credit and 4-credit outside courses.

• You may take all of these credits through the School of Public Health
• Only 4 of these credits may be taken on the Charles River Campus.
• These credits must be taken during the academic year, and may not be taken during the summer
• The only exception involves the following: BUSM allows you to take up to 18 credits per semester without paying extra tuition. If you have developed a plan to fulfill your required 7 electives, and it has been approved by your adviser, you can propose taking additional courses anywhere within the School of Public Health or GMS.

That allows any one of the following options, each of which must first be approved by your adviser:

• Take four MACCP electives;
• Take three MACCP electives, plus a 3-4 credit independent directed-study project within MACCP. To do so involves identifying a faculty member within the program who is both willing and available to supervise the directed study, and to arrive at a learning agreement with related assignments and deadlines;
• Take three MACCP electives, plus a 4th elective within another GMS program. This will not have to count against the 12 allowed outside credits;

Although directed-study credits do not count against the 12-credit limit allowed outside of GMS, they also do not let students take extra courses outside of the program. Again, the limit on outside-of-GMS credits is 12 credits.

Students who opt to cluster several directed-study credits to comprise a fourth in-program elective cannot do so to “take” a program elective course that they missed when it was actually offered. That said, students can use directed-study credits to address interests not represented in specific courses, as long as the credits remain within the program.

Students may not register for an elective through a non-GMS department, program, or school at BU if an equivalent course is offered by one of the GMS programs.

All electives must be 600-level or higher (exceptions may be made for language-study courses, for example, but require adviser’s approval and a petition to the Division to be submitted by the Program Director)

Be sure to plan your electives in consultation with your adviser

MACCP students engage in our Service Learning Internship Program (SLIP) throughout their first academic year. The identification of an internship site directly related to a student’s research interests gets underway during the summer prior to the start of the first year. Engagement in the internship supports our program’s commitment to community-based, participatory research.

The primary purpose of this internship is to:

• Involve students in a service-learning experience that will afford them the chance to learn about, and give back to, the larger community/ies surrounding the medical campus and Boston University.
• Create an opportunity to identify, explore, and establish a potential field-site(s) and/or community-based partnership(s) for ongoing participant-observation and later data collection.
• Develop a research question in dialogue with the community and/or group, to arrive at a thesis project that will address issues and needs identified by members of those communities and groups.

On average, internships consist of one-day/eight-hours per week of volunteer service in an approved setting. Students are expected to begin their internship by mid-October at the latest, and continue through the fall and spring semesters.

We understand global health to be both a local and an international phenomenon. We also take the study of health and health care to be as important to improving care locally as it is in settings abroad. Indeed, Boston and its surrounding communities present a microcosm of global health through their many cultural groups of longstanding and New Americans.

During the first year in the program, each student will develop a research question. It should grow out of the student’s field experience in their Service-Learning Internship, and reflect not only their own research and career commitments, but also concerns identified by the community or group with whom the student conducted their internship.

Through the series of required seminars in Theory and Methods, the student will build a research plan, establish related community connections and relationships, write a research protocol, and secure approval for their proposal from the Institutional Review Board of the B.U. School of Medicine.

Based on this foundation, students will participate in two weekly summer seminars, while conducting a minimum of 20 hours a week of fieldwork that includes participant observation, interviewing, and other forms of data gathering. They will learn different strategies for coding and analyzing data, in preparation for the series of thesis-writing seminars during their second year of the program

These Professional Development Workshops represent skills necessary to graduate-level research, the pursuit of funding support, preparation for the job market, and training in skills related to an academic career.

1. Library Research & Literature Searches—Tracking Down Your Sources
2. Funding Sources & Grant Writing
3. Applying to Doctoral Programs
4. Transferable Skills, Professional Development, and Looking for a Job
5. Making Research Presentations
6. From Thesis to Publication

Students must conduct original research that results in a master’s thesis of at least 25,000 words. The thesis must emphasize the integration of medical anthropology fieldwork and theory with a research question related to the student’s career objectives. This independent research must be advised by a three-member faculty committee, and presented at the end of the fourth semester to the student’s committee, and other program faculty and students. The thesis must demonstrate a solid research design; engagement in fieldwork with the collection and analysis of related data; the effective application of theory; and well written results.

This table lays out the semester-by-semester timeline of required courses, workshops, and electives:

This course introduces the history of the field of medical anthropology and of theoretical orientations related to understanding and analyzing health and medicine in society and culture. Readings will exemplify interpretive strategies applied to health-related experiences, discourse, knowledge, and practice. 3 cr.

Introduction to methodology for ethnographic field research in medical anthropology, and qualitative research methods. This course examines issues in designing anthropological research, and reviews theoretical approaches to research ethics, designing research, framing questions and interview design, and data collection techniques. 3 cr.

For this internship, students will arrange a volunteer project with the group or community with whom they plan to conduct their fieldwork. The purpose of the practicum is to initiate the process of engagement in Community-Based Participatory Research design. Ready

Students will begin keeping a required MACCP e-portfolio while enrolled in GMS MA 700 (History and Theory of Medical Anthropology, Part I).  Each student’s e-portfolio will collect and reflect on important classwork in courses for the program, as well as the work they do related to their service-learning internship.

1. Library Research & Literature Searches—Tracking Down Your Sources

Prereq: Permission of Instructor. Course will address theoretical traditions in medical anthropology, focusing on orientations developed and applied within the field over the past two decades to interpretations of health-related phenomena. 3 cr.

Prereq: Permission of Instructor. Students will learn to write a medical anthropology research proposal and related Institutional Review Board Proposal, through the structure provided by the IRB of BUSM. We will address theory and methods related to the design and review process. 3 cr.

For this practicum, students will continue working on their a volunteer project with the group or community with whom they plan to conduct their fieldwork. The purpose of the practicum is to initiate the process of engagement in Community-Based Participatory Research design.

Funding Sources & Grant Writing

Participant-observation fieldwork  experience is an integral dimension of anthropological methodology. Therefore, it represents an essential feature of the curriculum in the M.S. in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice program. Fieldwork allows students to complement their classroom study with field-based learning, link theory with practice, and refine their skills. It also helps students establish contacts, develop relationships, and learn from the experience of interacting with different cultural communities and groups.

This first of a two-part seminar will build on the student’s Service-Learning Internship Program experience, and provide a weekly opportunity to discuss issues likely to arise in the experience of conducting fieldwork. The course is structured around a core set of common readings, in tandem with each student’s individual research goals, as laid out in each student’s Learning Contract and Institutional Review Board protocol.

During this second of a two-part seminar, students continue their thesis fieldwork, while also learning different strategies for coding their data. Thee course is structured around a core set of common readings, in tandem with each student’s individual research goals, as laid out in each student’s Learning Contract and Institutional Review Board protocol.

3. Applying to Doctoral Programs

This seminar will read medical anthropological texts analytically. Starting with a review of the debates, going through selected classic ethnographic studies, the seminar will explore ethnographies that address different cultural meanings of human experiences of suffering and affliction, including illness and violence. Students will engage in studying the methodology, theoretical underpinnings, writing, and social positions represented in these ethnographies. Specific attention will be given to the role of applied anthropology and applied anthropologists, 3 cr.

Prereq: Permission of instructor. Examines strategies for analyzing medical anthropology data deriving from interviews and documents. In addition to reviewing different coding strategies and the rationales underlying them, the course will discuss topics such as approaches to managing textual data; the selection and application of epistemological and theoretical frameworks; narrative and discourse analysis; cognitive anthropology theory and methods; the use of grounded theory. Emphasizes the application of these strategies to the analysis and interpretation of data collected by the students as part of the course process. 3 cr.

This seminar will train learners in the theory and practice of writing up anthropological research findings, and of writing ethnography. The course emphasizes analytical writing. Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work.

Students will update ePortfolio to reflect work for Fall semester. Barnes

4. Transferable Skills, Professional Development, and Looking for a Job

Prereq: Permission of Instructor. This seminar builds on GMS MA 734 (Reading Ethnography in Medical Anthropology), turning the focus to the actual craft of writing ethnography. It is an integral part of MACCP students’ thesis-writing training.  Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. Through a series of exercises that draw on their own field notes and participant observations, students learn to employ three genres of cultural representation—realist tales, confessional tales, and impressionist tales. Students will explore their own authorial voice and style, and their relationship with truth, objectivity, and point-of-view. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work.

Prereq: Permission of instructor. This seminar will train learners in the theory and practice of writing up medical anthropology research findings, and of writing ethnography. The course emphasizes analytical writing. Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work. 3 cr.

5. Making Research Presentations
6. From Thesis to Publication