2012 Summer Fellowship Program

1. 2012 Summer Fellowship Program BSOM Department of Bioethics & Interdisciplinary Studies The goal of the Department of Bioethics & Interdisciplinary Studies Summer Fellowship program is to stimulate interest in ethical, cultural, aesthetic, and social dimensions of health, disease, and healing by inviting first year medical students to develop and submit original proposals relating to humanities and medicine. Students may work on projects in North Carolina, or they may use the Fellowship as an opportunity to do a project elsewhere in the United States or abroad. Proposals are awarded on a competitive basis. Student Fellows have the summer between their first and second year to develop and complete their Fellowship. At the conclusion of their projects, Fellows submit a paper, or other appropriate product, and give several public presentations. The Department of Bioethics & Interdisciplinary Studies is pleased to be offering these two Fellowships in 2012 in collaboration with the Brody Summer Research Scholars Program. We Are Pleased To Announce This Year’s Summer Fellowship Recipients An Exploration of the Provision of Women’s Reproductive Care in Two Medical Establishments in Cuzco, Peru The barrier to basic contraceptive services is an important obstacle that many Peruvian women will face during the course of their lives. Their lives will be shaped both by the opinions of the physicians to whom they have access and their general access to health care. Aseem Kaul Women and HIV Testing in Rural Areas of Swaziland, Africa Hunter will be conducting a qualitative, descriptive study in Swaziland, Africa, by gathering information through interviews with Swazi women over the age of fifteen, focusing on understanding the cultural perspective and reasons behind their lack of knowledge of their HIV status. Her goal is to gather information that can be used to better understand why a majority of women in Swaziland have never been tested for HIV. Hunter believes this insight into cultural perspective can benefit healthcare workers and the ways they approach and educate Swazi women with regard to HIV status and testing. Sarah Bennett Nichelle Barbari Nichelle and Sarah propose to investigate the personal opinions of Peruvian physicians regarding women’s access to contraceptive services as well as their ideas about conscientious objection over the provision of these services. Do physicians object to prescribing oral contraceptives or offering other forms of contraception to their patients, and if so, why? Their hope is to gain a better understanding of the source of these objections, whether it is the personal commitments of the physicians, the ideology of the medical institution, or the active presence of the Catholic Church. Shannon Booker Hunter Johnson The Identification of Physician Strategies to Manage Cultural Beliefs about Diarrheal Disease in Bangladesh Using the context of diarrheal disease, Aniqa will investigate the strategies that physicians in Bangladesh use to address the cultural beliefs their patients report. She will interview ten to twelve physicians at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to gather insights that will help other physicians when they encounter cultural beliefs about health in their patients. Obstacles That Exist in Parenting an Obese Child The research conducted in this study by Olivia and Brandon is meant to provide a parent's perspective on the obstacles that exist in parenting an obese child.  Readers’ Theater will be the forum in which parents are able to voice and express their concerns while finding and lending support to one another.  Upon the revelation of the occult hurdles these parents struggle with, our future physicians will be better equipped to treat patients of similar backgrounds. Aaron Vose Brandon Mills Aniqa Shahrier We plan to share the results of each Fellow’s project this Fall as part of our Perspectives Series.