When it comes down to it the smart choice when it comes to childbirth is to have a doctor on hand who can help with any problems. There are so many things that can go wrong is it really worth not only the child's life but the mothers if their is serious cause for concern. It is only proven when you look throughout history with statistics on successful childbirths throughout time and how we have progressed. Now while as I said I completely believe this is the only choice, it is reasonable to understand the beliefs of others. Some are deathly opposed to medicated child births, so while it is obvious the cautious approach is birth in a hospital; it is the right of the mother and the childs family to go about it in the way they wish. (Within reason of course)

John Plevel

Women and Childbirth

I thought that our discussion on childbirth in class was interesting. Talking about the pros and cons of a home birth versus a hospital birth. I think that if a woman's pregnancy is normal and she is not at risk for anything, it is completely their choice as to which they want to do. I do think that the father of the child or whoever the significant other is should have a say. I feel like that is a discussion that should happen prior to getting pregnant or at least in the beginning of the pregnancy, this way it isn't a shock or fight when it comes down to it.


From what I have seen on TV, read, and been told by those who have had one, home births are more calming and easier compared to a hospital birth. While this might be true, I also think that it depends on the woman. I talked to my mom about this and she said that when she had me and my two siblings her time at the hospital was nice and she never felt like they were trying to get rid of her. She didn't want IVs or an epidural and they never tried to make her change that. Her birthing processes for all of us was painful of course but wasn't that hard for her. I also talked to my aunt who was in labor for 24 hours with my cousin and ended up having to have a c-section.  That just shows right there that all women have different experiences during childbirth. 

Mutter Museum Thoughts

After watching the video from the Mutter museum we discussed whether we thought that they were for medical students as they claimed or if they were more geared for the public. While I do believe that medical students could learn things from the museum from the various exhibits within it, it seemed to me like it was more of a place for the public to come into.

I think that when they related that some things are famous because of who had previously owned them to parts of the bodies of famous people in the museum shows that fact. If it was for medical reasons then it shouldn't matter who the body part had belonged to. Yes, it is important to know the person's age and occupation as those can be factors to whatever the ailment was, but it shouldn't matter what their name was if it is for purely medical study. The other thing that made me think that it was more for public attendance was the showing of the shrunken heads. On one hand I do agree with Callie, that you can study them as an important part of a culture. But on the other hand if the purpose of the museum is for the medical students to study to prevent those diseases from happening, the shrunken heads don't really have a place.

I do think that in the case of Chang and Eng's liver, that it should be returned to their family, with just a cast of it remaining at the museum. With that in mind I still think that the museum is a good place for people to become aware of different diseases, whether they occur in our country on a regular basis or not.

I was very appalled with some of the things I learned this week about how our male dominated society has medicalized women. Until now I hadn't recognized the gender biases present in the history of medical practices. In particular I was astonished about the fact Rory brought up from the Vagina Monologues, that clitoridectamies were practiced to stop female masturbation, yet there is a complete double standard because no surgical interventions have ever been practices to stop males from masturbation. I also cannot believe that only 70 years ago these practices were being forced upon innocent little girls. I feel that is much too recent for something so inhumane, but so is much of the rest of human history.
Allison

I think it is important for the Mutter Museum to be open to the public. Some people mentioned in class that it is disrespectful to the bodies of those encased in the museum to be displayed for the public entertainment; however I feel that if these bodies are going to be in a museum it shouldn’t matter if the viewer has a MD, a PHd or neither. The contents of the museum hold educational value that should not be restricted from anyone who finds an interest in it and decides to walk into the museum. It is obvious that some people do in fact view the museum for its entertainment purpose, but education in general I feel has an entertainment value. What entertains one person may entertain AND inspire another. My point is that maybe an average person could walk into the Mutter Museum and see something that completely astonishes them, they could later use that information to do something truly important to the world, or they could not and they could have simly been entertained for a few hours. Either way it shouldn’t matter, if the bodies are in their present condition in the museum it should always be open to the medical community as well as the general public. I think its silly to think that only a member of the medical community could learn from it.
Allison

The Mutter museum a necessary evil

The Mutter Museum definitely shows a very important aspect of our history. Like discussed in class it gives a great real worldview of disease and some of the most unknown entities in science to medical students who would otherwise be clueless of what to do if faced with unusual situations. I also helps doctors with years of experience solve problems they nothing about, which in turn saves lives. While the preservation of some of these bodies and organs is quite nasty and unnatural in its own right I believe that for the most part it is for the betterment of science and even humanity. 

John Plevel

The Mutter Museum

I believe exhibitions like the Mutter Museum are important.  Medical maladies and injuries, deformities and the like are all interesting.  The purpose of a museum is to educate and to foster knowledge.  This museum clearly serves that purpose.  We only see what is on display, not what is archived.  As non-medical students, should we be the ones to judge how valuable this museum is to medical science? I'm willing to bet that there are many students and doctors who will testify as to not only the validity, but also the important of museums like the Mutter.

Making birth a pleasurable experience

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine posted a video on facebook of a woman in Hawaii that actually had an orgasm during childbirth. Yes, you read this right, AN ORGASM. Here's this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EQ_-irO50w&feature=share
I found this sort of fascinating. Apparently it's not an unusual occurrence. This woman is seen in the video having a water birth at home with her husband being very involved and quite affectionate with her while she's in labor. The looks on her face and the noises she's making are not ones of pain and agony, but of pure ecstasy. According to the video, a lot can factor into this experience. It starts with the water birth, which, as we talked about in class, is often a much more comfortable birthing experience for both the mother and the child. The husband/partner constantly touching, massaging, and even kissing his wife/partner during the labor actually gets her sexually excited and can help her orgasm. My favorite part of the video was when they discussed how women all over the world have so many other options when giving birth besides doing it in a hospital. These women often go through less pain than we do in the United States because they put more time and effort into learning how to have a completely natural childbirth. This was so interesting to me because I feel like as a country, we often have an arrogant attitude about things, especially medicinal technology. We think we're so much better than other countries because we have more developed ways of doing things. Well, maybe our "advanced" techniques are too advanced and are actually taking us a couple of steps backwards. I personally like the idea of having a more natural childbirth when I have children someday, and I think we could learn a lot from other parts of the world where this is the normal circumstance, and having a baby in a hospital is seen as unusual or out-of-the-ordinary.

Sarah Bradley

Plastic Surgery

From a public relations view the Mutto Museum's video did a generally good job of making the museum look as if it is a scientific tool for medicine.  However, as discussed in class that is not the case.  Most of their business comes from the general public which they decided to graze over in their video.  With all of the cultural practices such as shrinking heads, I thought about what a museum might look like in 50 years, a 100?  I thought about how our society is fascinated by the physical body and its beauty and its deformities.  Plastic surgery is a huge trend among those who have the means.  We see people altering their bodies in a number of ways and I wonder how that will be displayed years from now.  Will future society put those on display that have altered their body to the extreme?

The Role of the Man in the Process of Birth

An excellent point was made in class when the role of the man in the process of birth was brought up.  What exactly is our role?  While I submit that the woman is responsible for carrying the child to term and actually giving birth, the child's genetic material is still made up of 50% of his father's.  Does this mean that the men don't have a say? What if the mother wants the child to be born at home with a midwife but the father wants the child to be born in a hospital with a doctor?  I was watching "Mrs. Doubtfire" this evening and I noticed a particularly disturbing part.  Sally Field's character, Miranda, was given custody of the children following a divorce, and the judge admitted that custody hearings always tend to favor the mother.  Why is this? Stay at home dads are becoming more and more common.  Are we to believe that just because women give birth to a child that they are any more equipped to raise the child than a man is? I'll flip the situation and ask if we are expected to believe a man is more equipped to run a fortune 500 company just because they aren't able to have children?

Control of the Medicalization of Women

When it comes to the medicalization of women, many of the comments did tend to dodge the simple fact that at least since the main three "desert" religions were all in practice, women as a whole didn't have full control over their bodies, lives, and the decisions they made with them. This underlines a huge reason to the control given to men when being part of the patriarchal society/religion. Even with the issues on abortion and even how childbirth for women has always been a somewhat of an issue. When we talked about men having medical control of women, even to say that various expectations of men and women were socially emphasized from competitiveness; I agree. To comment on Jordan's "bring home the bacon" point of view, I believe that having a wife was not just a reason to have someone bring home the bacon to, but rather to have their wife reproduce a family, mainly male, for heirs to their family. So, looking at it this way, it is more of a "bacon legacy" ideal. There have been many examples of men and even women leaders to produce, usually a male heir to continue legacies.
As in looking at birth, I feel that there should be more and more women who should be sitting on these panels for discussions and awareness on abortion, gynecology, and childbirth, not just a majority of men. I feel that this will help give female trust in the medical world for help to take care of themselves and their children

media and pregnancy

We touched upon in class the media's role in pregnancy and it made me think about the large number of shows that are about pregnancy.  More so I thought about shows like "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom".  Shows like this glamorize teenage pregnancy.  But these shows was the media's attempt to prevent teen pregnancy with shows like “Teen Mom” and “16 and Pregnant” developed by MTV.  "With the high incidence of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, it's more important than ever to reach young people where they are and with messages that resonate," said Tina Hoff, Vice President and Director, Entertainment Media Partnerships. "Through our longstanding partnership with MTV, we reach tens of millions of viewers every day with programming and other content to help them make responsible and safer decisions about their sexual health."  MTV will reach out to thousands of individuals and organizations across the country that work in education, health, and sex education to promote the show and its resources. The media can be blamed with maximizing sex and exposing it to youth but MTV is now able to reach youth with an important sex education message.  These new shows display the consequences of teen pregnancy and the girls in the show actually talk about how they wish they had used protection or had waited.  But the possibility that these shows are glamorizing teen pregnancy is another possibility contributing to teen pregnancy increase.  The girls on this show have become famous and are often displayed in the tabloids.  These girls have become reality show celebrities and it is because they are teen parents.  The movie “Juno” starring Ellen Paige made being prenant seem nonchalant and no big deal, thus adding to the new obsession in teen pregnancy the media is popularizing.  “As a result, teens are left to filter the movies and media on their own. In an interview with NPR [National Public Radio], Jane Brown from the Teen Media Project said, "It is unusual that we would be glamorizing pregnant celebrities, and we don't even know who the fathers are...." But that's where we are now. Instead of the full picture, all we see is the cute baby and a celebrity mom whose body snaps back to normal in a few weeks”

Work Cited

"Abstinence Education Is to Blame for Rising Teen Birth Rates" by Contraceptive Technology    Update. Teen Pregnancy and Parenting. Lisa Krueger, Ed. Current Controversies Series. Greenhaven Press, 2011. Contraceptive Technology Update, "Teen Birth Rate Rises, Reversing 14-Year Decline—What Is Behind the Numbers?" April 1, 2009.

"MTV Reaches Out to Teens to Prevent Teen Pregnancy" by Women's Health Weekly. Teen Pregnancy and Parenting. Lisa Krueger, Ed. Current Controversies Series. Greenhaven Press, 2011. Women's Health Weekly, "MTV Chronicles the Challenges of Teen Pregnancy in 16 & Pregnant premiering on Thursday, June 11th at 10pm ET/PT," June 4, 2009.

"Popular Media Glamorize Teen Pregnancy" by Brian Housman. Teen Pregnancy and Parenting. Lisa Krueger, Ed. Current Controversies Series. Greenhaven Press, 2011. Brian Housman, "Teen Pregnancy Not All Happy Smiles," Awake to Life, 2008.

mutter museum purpose

The video that we watched on the mutter museum was very interesting. At the end we were discussing the purpose behind the museum if it was for medical students, like they claimed, or for entertainment. The fact that there is a gift shop in the museum makes me think that its for fun. Many of their visitors are not medical students and are there just out of curiosity, making it a social attraction. The objects that they display could be helpful for students but if they cannot touch them how helpful is it really. I would love to go there and see some of the objects that were not shown in the video. Overall, I think the museum wants to be known for its medical background but is being taken over by tourists and becoming more of an attraction.

women and birth

Women in today's society are still under the pressure dealing with pregnancy that they have been dealing with for centuries. The decision that they make regarding their bodies are often based on suggestions from male doctors. In class we were discussing the pros and cons of home births. We were debating if giving birth at

home away from doctors was a selfish choice. I think that if you are having a normal pregnancy and are at low risk for problems, a home birth is a good option. A women in her own environment is more relaxed an it could make the birth easier and more natural. Without being hooked up to monitors and forced to lay on your back, it is a more pleasant experience for a woman. I believe that it is a personal choice that depends on the person. 

Female Protagonist

Pixar Studios has 12 movies all which have been successful. Out of those 12 movies there is not one female protagonist. Urged by his wife, John Lasseter—Pixar’s chief creative officer—finally decided to make Pixar’s 13^th film Brave with a female protagonist. He even hired a female, Brenda Chapman, to produce the film. The story revolves around a princess, but the usual princess narrative is sabotaged. For instance the princess tells her nagging mother—the queen—that she is not marrying anyone. She also fights bears, wields swords and fires arrows. I thought this was going to be an article about a movie aimed to challenge traditions. And when the film is released in June, many will be delighted to see an animated movie with a female protagonist from a mega film studio. On the other hand, if anyone reads the Time article or investigates the real life production of the film, they will find the movie was not a triumph for the female gender. Brenda Chapman was fired halfway through the production, because the movie was too “murky” and was not “propulsive” enough. She was replaced by a male director who made the final version “brawnier.” This is ironic since the movie was taking a gamble by not giving the princess the traditional tiara, wand and pink dress. My guess is the film wanted to appeal to the younger male gender. The only way to do that was to “masculinize” the film. We have already seen the ass kicking female theme in many other movies from different studios. Why does the female have to be “kicking ass” to appeal to the male gender—to sell tickets? To me Brave is now flawed, it is not a genuine movie about a female protagonist, because a male co-created her and was behind her ass kicking actions. I would actually have paid the money to see a kid’s film about a female protagonist created solely by a female director, just to see a female’s interpretation of a heroine. Now that I know the truth behind the making—that the interpretation was altered by a males perspective—I will not waste my time or money.
Stein, Joel. “Pixar’s Girl Story: An exclusive first look at the megasuccessful studio’s first film with a female protagonist” Time Magazine 5^th March 2012: 36-41. Print.

Domalski, Josh

The Mutter Museum

I have been thinking about the question Jeff posed to all of us on Tuesday: Should everything on display be on display at the museum, or is some of it inappropriate? I think this sort of difficult to answer straightly - I feel that there is both appropriateness and inappropriateness in the displays, it depends on what I am looking at, and I think I would have to actually go to the museum and experience it to gauge how I would really feel about it. In the early days of the museum, its visitors were medical students and physicians. Nowadays, I think it has shifted to primarily the general public who mostly come to look more so than to learn.

- Josh Steffen

Birth

The discussion we had in class on Thursday made me think about my own birth, and what I was told about my brother's. My mom had me and my brother both in the hospital because she wanted to be there in case something went wrong. Personally, if I was going to be giving birth, I would want to be in that environment because you never know. I can totally understand how people may want a natural, home birth, it depends on the situation.

My mom had no choice but to go to the hospital when she had me because I was premature, and she was taken by mercy flight to Buffalo. When they broke my mom’s water, it splashed all over the doctor, who happened to be a short person. I was a little over a year old when my parents found out I had Cerebral Palsy (I was still crawling). My lungs were underdeveloped so they injected surfactant right away to increase my ability to breathe (they did not want me to take a breath when I came out of the womb). Even so, I stopped breathing 20 times a day, and I remained in the hospital for 14 weeks after I was born.

What I have been told about my brother's birth is amusing to me. The after-birth was in a silver pan on the counter. My dad walked over to it and said “Oh my God, this is cool!” He tried to show my mom the big purple, bloody blob and she said “Oh my God that’s gross, put it back!”

- Josh Steffen

The Mutter and Other Museums

I know this seems a bit back earlier in the week, but as we were looking over the issues people had with the Mutter Museum and how they portrayed themselves in the video, there were things that, clearly giving my major, I was in disagreement with. Whatever a museum puts in their exhibits, they very much have to relate them to their mission, or at least their core exhibition pieces. For instance, the shrunken heads with the various tribes from Latin America, shows through physical anthropology, which students go through medical school for, help us understand the how these tribes explored with body modification. And hello, this is very much related to medicine. 
As I mentioned in class, museums started out as people's constant gaining "oddities" or unusual collections and putting them into storage. This NPR article that I found from November 2008, shows the outlining aspects of how museums, like the Mutter started. It also talks about PT Barnum in the beginning on the issue of whether museums come to us as more of education versus entertainment. Quite honestly, it depends on the museum you go to. However, as a whole, or on the main scale, museums are there so that we as humans can preserve pieces from our past. In the case of some of the experiments unethically done on people in the "medical theatre", for example, this museum can show their visitors how these procedure were done and how we aren't doing them now. Most things I learned at museums, I didn't learn in middle, high school, and for some, even college! 
So please take a look! I know I preach about this, but it does show some good insight, with somethings that I didn't know! 

History of Museums, 'The Memory of Man Kind'

Callie Jayne 

Religion and Medicine

The religious views that permeate the health care system are nauseating.  The current furor over requiring religious based employers to provide contraceptives their employees is very amusing/disgusting.  It is obvious that the religious institutions do not trust their congregants to follow their teachings or this would not be such a hot button topic.  Furthermore, the religious employers do not respect the religious rights of all of their employees.  The religious entities, all run by males, are determined that everyone will espouse their views on this subject, like it or not.

Joyce Abbott

Nothing is what it seems...

(Kohler-Riessman article, p. 51, paragraph 2) "They [obstetricians] argued that normal pregnancy and parturition were the exception rather than the rule."
That's funny.  So what's normal isn't really normal and what is deviant is really normal?   Spreading this claim/belief is how authorities impose their power on others?  What other cultural myths do we blindly take for granted?  How is it that people fall for this clear logical fallacy time and time again?  Obviously, the way in which the masses are controlled consists of more than that alone.


One method of establishments is arousing fear.    Yes, in the case of childbirth there are risks, but are all of these real or perceived?  Are we given misinformation for a doctor's profit?  The fear of putting newborn in danger is legitimate, it's a priority, and certainly a something to take into account.  However, the emotion of fear can be paralyzing and cause us to be passive to structured norms of operation (the status quo) and can bias us and cause us to filter out information that might clearly refute the status quo's claim.  "There is nothing to fear but fear itself." (FDR)  Once we set the fear aside, it seemed like the main focus in today's class was technical, to find facts.  The goal was to find the pros and cons of birthing in a hospital vs home, and in what circumstances one is better than the other.  We ignored the concern for women's rights in the search for what was really beneficial for the baby, because the right to choice is an illusion.  We arrive at a decisions using the information and experiences we have.  In other words, if women are limited to the information available, the outcomes are the same whether women have more say or not.  This would be a good project for outreach and spreading awareness.


~ John

Women's Bodies

After reading the first few paragraphs of Weitz's article, where she mentions Aristotle and the Greek doctor Galen, it becomes quite clear that men have always searched for an explanation and justification for why women are so inferior. Aristotle and Galen claimed that women's bodies lacked the heat that men had externally, "explaining" why women's brains were smaller, they had emotional weaknesses, they were sexually deviant, etc. There are also themes of female inferiority in the Christian Bible, which another professor of mine described that men in power misinterpreted the Adam and Eve story to be one of female deviancy when it was actually about disobedience to God. Over the years, men have also come up with several more reasons why women will never measure up to their male counterparts. The majority of the reasons seem to lie within female reproductive systems. Women in the 1800s who wished to attend college were told that their ovaries and uterus' would shrink if they wasted energy on non womanly things. Therefore, educated women had deviated away from their God given role and the role that society had given them: motherhood and child rearing. I feel that these men who came up with these outrageous excuses were truly paranoid about the possibility of women having minds of their own, how else could they have thought of such ridiculous things about women?

Another thing that I brought up in my discussion questions was that whenever women do have an ailment, the only thing the doctors are concerned about are that your reproductive capabilities are still intact. This, which is still happening to many women, including myself, shows that women's worth and value lies within her "ability" to create healthy children. The fact that this is still how women are treated at the doctors office is disheartening.

One more point that I would like to bring up is women's own control over their fertility. The fact that there is a current debate about the legality of birth control, judged by an all male panel says a lot about how women are still not granted equality to men. I wonder if anyone has ever stopped to question why only female forms of contraception are ever up for debate. Abortion and the pill is always a heated debate, so much that some find these methods to be unethical and wish they would be outlawed. I wonder what people would say if the government decided to limit or stop the sale of male contraceptives. A contraceptive is a contraceptive. It all does the same (well almost, stops pregnancy) thing in the end anyway. It should be up to an individual to decide if they want to control their fertility, it is after all, their body, and they should have the final say in what happens to it. To make particular forms of women's contraception illegal is to impose sex discrimination on women, including abortion in my opinion. People will argue that it is murder, but when it comes right down to it, it is still the woman's body and she should be the only one to have control over it, not the government.

Erin Pattridge

Abnormal Pregnancies

     I found this article in Time Magazine which relates to the whole theme of our class: “Early Decision: Will new advances in prenatal testing shrink the ranks of babies with Down syndrome?” The article was about a new method—a simple blood test—that could efficiently, cheaply and safely detect fetus’s with terminal diagnoses. What I found interesting is that the new blood test could be viewed in two ways: First, to weed out children with Down syndrome or any other less perfect than among us—the search and destroy way of looking at it. Or one could look at it as an option to help families to emotionally and medically prepare for a child with abnormalities. Sadly as the article suggested, “termination after a positive test often seems the default expectation.” In other words, with the new blood test, it is likely our society will back-track and once again practice Eugenics. The problem, “If more terminations lead to a reduction of services for babies with Down syndrome . . . [things would return] to the way they were 40 years ago, when children with Down syndrome were rarely mainstreamed into schools and were often institutionalized.” One mother in the article was undecided about terminating her pregnancy. She then went to a support group whose membership included parents that had children with Down syndrome; she noticed the kids were more playful, friendly and active than she anticipated. She then chose to follow through with her pregnancy. Awareness seems to be the enemy and blurs the lines of “normal vs. deviant”. The article did an amazing job with its conclusion: “Any parent raising a child with Down syndrome will have the same range of experiences [they would with a normal child]—the good and the bad, the joyous and the challenging—albeit in different ways. It’s that very possibility of ordinariness, though, that may best capture the new world of the Down syndrome child.”
     The conclusion seems to ask, “Is raising a child with Down syndrome any different than raising a normal child?” at the same time suggest, “Raising a child with Down Syndrome will give you the same experiences as raising a normal child.” So the ultimate question then, is a child with Down syndrome all that abnormal?

Rochman, Bonnie. “Early Decision: Will new advances in prenatal testing shrink the ranks of babies with Down syndrome?” Time Magazine 27^th Feb. 2012: 36-40. Print

Domalski, Josh

Women's Bodies

Today for class we read two articles dealing with women's bodies and medicalization. They dealt with the issue of women being weak and fragil. In class we talked about how this is the same today. It is relvant today because women are still more emotional than men are and are more in touch with their emotions and emotions of other people which make us look weak. At the same time however if a women is not emotional at all and is very successful they are seen as being cold hearted with no emotion at all and that is looked down upon. Its almost like females can never catch a break because if your too emotional than you are too weak or fragil and at the same time if your not emotional then you are a terrible person. We also talked about if this was a biological or social problem. I believe that people are born to have emotions but society plays a role in shaping how we feel or dont feel. For example I think that men can be just as emotional as women but society looks down on that and tells them its not masculine to be emotional otherwise you are like a female. Also society encourages women to be emotional. In class we also talked about how women and slaves were not able to take care of themselves and be in control of their own bodies becayse men feared them being independent which would cause men to lose control of thier power and "property." This is similar today because I feel some men want to stay in control especially now that men and women compete with each other for jobs. This is even true during child birth. Doctors downplay the idea of a home birth and say hospital births are better. I think that reason for this is because in a hospital it is set up to make to doctor more comfortable and in control of the women. I feel like this is an issue that will continue to happen. I think that some men, but not all, will always want to find  way to control females because they are afraid of a strong female to they try and supress them.

Mutter

They state at the beginning of the film that they show interesting cases of diseases that were prevalent a century ago when left untreated by western medicine. I had a hard time accepting that their "main selling point" or purpose of the museum was to provide examples for medical students to observe these cases that are most certainly irrelevant today. It is clear the museum disguises its advertisement to see freak things for medicinal purposes.

The only example of a school today that actually used part of the exhibit was on the man whose tissue turned into bone. "This disease is called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) - considered one of the most rarest, most disabling genetic conditions, in which inflammation causes the body's soft tissues to turn to bone, slowly trapping victims in a second skeleton."In the film, they say the University of Penn was making strives into finding a cure, using the example at Mutter to help. 

Brian Gallagher 

Mutter film

After watching the film on the Mutter museum, I couldn't help but get a little upset at all the bashing that was going on during the class discussion. So many people were badmouthing the museum for making a spectacle out of the specimens and having a gift shop to make money. I thought this was really unfair, maybe because I've actually been to the museum and I know the kind of environment it is.
     Like any museum, the Mutter museum has a particular purpose. It's making an effort to educate people, medical students and the general public alike, on the history and development of our scientific and medical history. It's one of the few places that offers such an opportunity to anyone who wishes to learn. I have no doubt that not every patron that attends this museum has the purest intention; I didn't go strictly because I was interested in medical stuff, but also because I had a natural curiosity for the weird stuff, too. However, with any major effort to educate the general public on something as intriguing as medicine and disease, or other scientific fields in general, this will always happen. Those who work at the Mutter museum and help keep it running should not be blamed for slightly catering to the expected curiosity of their patrons. As far as the gift shop goes, EVERY museum has a gift shop, as well as many other attractions. Historical landmarks such as Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, also in Philadelphia, have gift shops, food courts, and allow people to take pictures with them, as well. Some may see this as exploitation, but I see it as clever marketing. These attractions need to acquire revenue in order to stay open and to keep people coming. With the crappy economy, why not capitalize on them a little? It doesn't, and shouldn't, take away from their significance or importance to our history and the development of our society.
     In the Mutter museum, there are no bright colors,, no fancy gimmicks or big signs leading you to particularly weird or unusual exhibits. There is information about each specimen, such as the species it came from, what part of the world it came from, what the disease is, and sometimes the person's name and a brief description when necessary. Nothing is able to be touched or played with by the public, and even with dozens of people in the museum, it remains very quiet. It has an atmosphere of respect and people spend their time observing and reading each piece within the museum as if they're getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to peer into our past. I honestly think that if some people from class ever have the opportunity to visit the museum (and you should try to!), they might change their minds.

Sarah Bradley

Business of Being Born

While reading the section on child birth in Women and Medicalization, is was reminded of a documentary I watched called The Business of Being Born. The documentary looks at 'alternative' methods to child birth, like home births, and comparing them to hospital births. That document uses statistics and experience from other women to show the advantages of using a home birth and why hospitals are actually detrimental to women. This just reiterates the push for profession dominance over child birth. The documentary even states that medical students don't even get to witness a natural child birth. In America, more women are having more c-sections that in any other country. Women are planning c-sections because it is the latest trend. Only 8% of births are attended by midwifes. However, midwifes attend to about 70% of births in Europe, Japan, Australia, Spain, and these countries are losing fewer women and babies during child birth. The US has the one of the worst newborn mortalities in the world. Just like Riessman stated in her article, medical management of child birth is not improving the results or the safety in women, and it clearly states that in the statistics. We have to ask ourselves, are these medical interventions making things worse?

Here is a clip from The Business Being Born where the discuss the medical process of delivering a baby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fPauJEy7fc

Mutter or Monsterous

Really? I wonder if he knew what he was doing?

After watching the documentary in class today I felt really bad for ever going to a science museum. Not going to lie I wanted to go to the museum at the beginning of the documentary but by the end I don’t think I will be visiting. The documentary brought to light all of the ways the living profit and exploit the dead particularly the deviant. Before this documentary I never thought of museums of freak shows because they were there for learning. I think that only medical students or others in the profession should be allowed to visit the museum. I think that the public just goes into the museum not because they are eager to study and learn about the “monstrous” defects but because they want to gawk at the dead. If the museum did not want to exploit the bodies of the dead then they wouldn’t have a gift shop or a guessing game of the computer. The fact that the museum is using social media to display the deviant shows that they are continuing the freak show atmosphere. When someone in class mentioned that the curator would put up a guessing game “Guess What Oddity?” it reminded me of the freak show where the audience had to guess what the man was. I think the mutter museum and the bodies exhibits should be only show a select few (defiantly not children). I think these exhibits desensitizes the society and doesn’t really personalize the actually person enough so that we as a society realize that these bodies were actually living people. 

-Sarah Fiorella