Medical Anthropology MSc

If you work in medicine or allied fields and want to learn more about how illness and wellness are considered in different cultures, anthropology is an ideal route to greater understanding.

Brunel was the first university in Europe to establish a master's degree in medical anthropology and since then has continued to develop the course to reflect the changing world in which we live.

The Medical Anthropology MSc will equip you with a broad, general understanding of anthropology and how it might be applied to medical and health-related problems.

You will develop a deeper understanding of how people’s ideas about the world, as well as the structural constraints within which they find themselves, have an impact on their understanding and experience of health, sickness and disease.

You’ll achieve this through close study of key texts in medical anthropology, the original fieldwork experiences of your lecturers, and through designing and undertaking your own research project.

The course will address questions such as:

• How does poverty contribute to the profiles of diseases such as diabetes and tuberculosis?
• Why are some diseases, such as leprosy or AIDS/HIV, feared and stigmatized?
• Why do some biomedical interventions seeking to control infectious and non-infectious diseases work, and others fail?
• What might stop some patients from seeking conventional treatments for cancers and other conditions – even when they are offered for free – despite the apparent efficacy of the medicines available?

Careers and your future

Hundreds of students – doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, social workers, and other medical professionals among them – can testify to the quality of our programme, having used it either to enhance their professional practice, to change career, or to develop their research interests for future studies.

Students will acquire analytical and research skills that can be used in a wide range of careers. In particular, the course is ideal for enhancing professional development in fields such as midwifery, general practice, sexual health, psychiatry, nutrition, psychotherapy, public health, non-governmental agencies and international development.

Some of our graduates also go on to do further research for a PhD in medical anthropology.