Reflections on ethnography in medicine

After conducting many years of ‘classical’ ethnographic fieldwork among refugees in Cyprus, I started field research in hospitals, community settings, and medical schools in Belgium,England, and Cyprus. My collaborations with clinical and biomedical scientists have led to an ongoing dialogue about ethnographic fieldwork and ethnographic writing. I discuss, through some ethnographic vignettes from my own research journey, some challenges that academics who work in medical research units may face in their engagements with ethnography. Stefan Beck’s work speaks to researchers from different social, biomedical and clinical disciplines.

I show that ethnographic work, such as that by Beck, raises the profile of social scientific work in medicine and demonstrates the potential of ethnography in medicine.