摘要：For the last four years I have been teaching the Social Preventive Medicine
(SPM) course to first year medical students at the American University of
Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon. Around eighty students attend this core course,
which is part of the teaching of public health within the medical curriculum.
During the course of these years I have attempted to use the SPM as a
platform to introduce theories and methods in medical anthropology to
medical students. As both a medical doctor trained in Iraq – and an
anthropologist – trained in the United States – this task has presented me with
many challenges, as well as, offered me insights into tensions between the
two fields. These experiences are the subject of this essay, which attempts to
explore teaching at the margins of anthropology and medicine in a Middle
Eastern setting. While situated at different margins, I reflect on how this
course became an interesting site for exploring the complex task of teaching
medical anthropology in a non-western context, while, at the same time,
raising a set of paradoxes that are particular to teaching medical anthropology
in a post-colonial setting. My attempt here is not to generalize my experiences
or to reify the dichotomy of East and West; rather, it is to situate them within
their socio-political, economic and historical realities.
