In Improvising Medicine, Julie Livingston tells the story of Botswana's only dedicated cancer ward, located in its capital city of Gaborone. This affecting ethnography follows patients, their relatives, and ward staff as a cancer epidemic emerged in sub-Saharan Africa. Through out the first three chapters, Livingston discusses the history, conditions, and stories of Botswana's oncology ward that dramatize the human stakes and intellectual and institutional challenges of an epidemic that will shape the future of global health 7.
This ethnography takes place mainly on the recently established oncology ward of Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana. Livingston states that before PMH was built, the cancer ward in Botswana used to be part of the Accident and Emergency Department of PMH. However, the ministry of health predicted a rise and cancer and refitted the observation wing of the Accident and Emergency as the country’s one and only cancer ward (Livingston 3). Livingston refers to the new ward as the “other” cancer ward because although it was …show more content…
In Africa, cancer has historically been largely invisible, in part because of public health imaginaries that have constructed Africans as “biologically simple,” and the continent as a denizen of infectious disease crises (Livingston 10-11). As a result, the practice of medicine and cancer itself in Botswana is different from what one somewhere such as is a hospital cancer ward in Chapel Hill would expect. When you think of cancer wards in the United States, let along in a city such as Chapel Hill where cancer research and treatment are a main concern, you can imagine a whole wing of a hospital dedicated to cancer cases with a well-established team of doctors and nurses. UNC’s Medical Center is recognized as one of the top 20 hospitals for cancer care by US News & World
This ethnography takes place mainly on the recently established oncology ward of Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana. Livingston states that before PMH was built, the cancer ward in Botswana used to be part of the Accident and Emergency Department of PMH. However, the ministry of health predicted a rise and cancer and refitted the observation wing of the Accident and Emergency as the country’s one and only cancer ward (Livingston 3). Livingston refers to the new ward as the “other” cancer ward because although it was …show more content…
In Africa, cancer has historically been largely invisible, in part because of public health imaginaries that have constructed Africans as “biologically simple,” and the continent as a denizen of infectious disease crises (Livingston 10-11). As a result, the practice of medicine and cancer itself in Botswana is different from what one somewhere such as is a hospital cancer ward in Chapel Hill would expect. When you think of cancer wards in the United States, let along in a city such as Chapel Hill where cancer research and treatment are a main concern, you can imagine a whole wing of a hospital dedicated to cancer cases with a well-established team of doctors and nurses. UNC’s Medical Center is recognized as one of the top 20 hospitals for cancer care by US News & World