The authors of this special issue use clinical ethnographic methods in a variety of local geographies to scrutinize these new practices at various sites along the compliance continuum. Contributors conducted fieldwork in Canada, the U.S., Russia, and Barbados. Critical questions addressed through these papers include: How do parents and children differ in their interpretations of treatment compliance in adolescent bi-polar disorder? How does the “relative value” of patients treated for diabetes determine their compliance status; future likelyhood of treatment; and doctor bonus payments? How do college students become self-compliant when using psychotropic medication to treat mood disorders? What are the dynamics of compliance between pharmaceutical companies (and contract research organizations) and clinical trial subjects? How do anxieties between patients and doctors (and biomedicine versus traditional medicine) impact treatment compliance for childhood asthma? What factor does willpower play when structuring alcohol treatment programs for large populations? What role does (bio)ethics play in creating compliance regimens for community psychiatric treatment programs? How does trust and the the notion of the “good nurse” impact Alzheimer's treatment adherence? And finally, what does compliance mean at the “end-of-life” for terminally ill cancer victims?

 

Collectively, these papers will stress the perspectives of a variety of local stake-holders, while critically assessing the human benefits (and costs) incurred through new and emergent practices of medical compliance.

Original Papers

Introduction: “New Anthropologies of Medical Compliance”
Applbaum and Oldani

Between Compliance and Willpower: Treating Alcoholism in St. Petersburg, Russia
Eugene Raikhel

Thinking Outside the Compliance Box: Social and Symbolic Practices of Psychiatric Medication Consumption among University Students
Kelly McKinney and Brian Greenfield

A Philosophy without Philosophers: Medical Compliance at the End of Life
Carolyn Rouse

Youth and Psychiatric Medication: Desire and Disappointment
Jerry Floersch and Jeffrey Longhofer

Diagnosing Desire: Anxieties in the Discourse of Compliance
Ian Whitmarsh

The Poetics of Caring: Trust, Compliance, and the Good Nurse
Annette Leibing

Compliance and Coercion: Emergent Ethical Debates Among Front-Line Clinicians in Community Psychiatry
Paul Brodwin

Taking Drugs For Money: Examining New Forms of Medical Compliance and Resistance among Professional Clinical Trial Subjects in the U.S.
Roberto Abadie/Hunt

From “Good Numbers” to “Drop-em” Status: Assessing the Relative Value of Diabetic Patients Treated Through a Corporate Compliance Model
Michael Oldani