Crafting an Amish biomedical landscape

Martha King

doi:10.17157/mat.4.1.365

Abstract

Within their pluralistic system of health care, the Amish make medical decisions influenced by cultural practice: a call for adherents to separate themselves from the outside world and to yield to the group. Using ethnographic research, this article discusses one aspect of the relationship between Amish communities near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a pediatric genetics clinic that has reformed the ways it mobilizes biomedicine in order to engage this community. Despite local Amish reticence to participate in biomedical systems, three elements discussed here are among those that help shape successful relationships between Amish families and the clinic: a carefully crafted physical space, a conceptualization of genetic medicine as skilled work, and a consideration for culturally appropriate use of time. Amish spaces of practice open to incorporate the clinic as biomedical spaces labor to incorporate Amish practice. The result is an emergent therapeutic landscape developing as a response to group social practice.

Highlights

Elements of Amish society both attract and confound outsiders, including their fundamental religiosity, the nature of their modernity, the appearance of contradictions in their way of life, and the differences between regional Amish groups
I examine the therapeutic landscapes built in terms of space and time by the working relationship between the Amish and the modern genetic medicine of the Clinic for Special Children (CSC)
The pace of work at the CSC aids in incredible continuity of care and provides a natural forum for integrating essential patient education and building social relationships between patient families and practitioners that carry into the Amish community at large

Summary

Introduction

Elements of Amish society both attract and confound outsiders, including their fundamental religiosity, the nature of their modernity, the appearance of contradictions in their way of life, and the differences between regional Amish groups. I examine the therapeutic landscapes built in terms of space and time by the working relationship between the Amish and the modern genetic medicine of the CSC.

Results

Conclusion