on-governmental agencies and activists and others. The various terminologies used to refer to it attest to differences in knowledge systems, perceptions, and lived experiences emerging from divergent cultures and ideologies. In the last two decades, these debates have evolved from a local matter to a global health concern and human rights issue, coinciding with the largest influx of African refugees to the Western nations. Various forms of female circumcision are reported in 28 countries in the African Continent; Somalia has one of the highest prevalence of female circumcision and the most severe type. The practice is antithetical to Western values and poses an ideological challenge to the construction of the normal body, its bodily processes and its existential being-in-the-world. From the global health perspectives, female circumcision is deemed to be a health hazard--especially during childbirth--though the scientific evidence is inconclusive from studies conducted in post-migration. Yet, Somali refugee women have higher childbearing disparities in host nations, including the U.S. They are also perceived as difficult patients and resistant to obstetrics interventions. Although their FGC status and "cultural" differences are often cited, there is a lack of adequate explanations as to why and how these factors shape patient-provider interactions and affect outcomes. The objectives of this dissertation study are to quantitatively and qualitatively explore these questions within and between Somali refugee women and their healthcare providers in Arizona. Two theoretical frameworks and methods--culture consensus and embodiment-- are applied to identify variations in childbearing knowledge and to explore how the cultural phenomenon of circumcision is subjectively and intersubjectively embodied in the context of childbearing. Culture consensus questionnaire (N=174) and ethnographic interviews (N=40) using phenomenology approach were conducted. Analyses suggest cross-cultural disagreement hinged on: faith in science versus God, pregnancy/childbirth interventions, language challenges, and control-resistance issues; intra-cultural disagreement underscores that Somalis are not culturally homogenous group. Preconceptions of female circumcision body as a cultural phenomenon has different and conflicting meanings that may adversely impact patient-provider interactions and outcomes.
Patient-clinician interactions are central to technical and interpersonal processes of medical care. Video recordings of these interactions provide a rich source of data and a stable record that allows for repeated viewing and analysis. Collecting video recordings requires navigating ethical and feasibility constraints; further, realizing the potential of video requires specialized research skills. Interdisciplinary collaborations involving practitioners, medical educators, and social scientists are needed to provide the clinical perspectives, methodological expertise, and capacity needed to make collecting video worthwhile. Such collaboration ensures that research questions will be based on scholarship from the social sciences, resonate with practice, and produce results that fit educational needs. However, the literature lacks suggested practices for building and sustaining interdisciplinary research collaborations involving video data. In this paper, we provide concrete advice based on our experience collecting and analyzing a single set of video-recorded clinical encounters and non-video data, which have so far yielded nine distinct studies. We present the research process, timeline, and advice based on our experience with interdisciplinary collaboration. We found that integrating disciplines and traditions required patience, compromise, and mutual respect; learning from each other enhanced our enjoyment of the process, our productivity, and the clinical relevance of our research.
In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court ruled that laws banning abortion violated the US Constitution. The Texas abortion laws, articles 1191–1194, and 1196 of the Texas penal code, made abortion illegal and criminalized those who performed or facilitated the procedure. Prior to Roe v. Wade, most states heavily regulated or banned abortions. The US Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade secured women's rights to terminate pregnancies for any reasons within the first trimester of pregnancy. It also sparked legal discussions of abortion, fetus viability and personhood, and the trimester framework, setting a landmark precedent for future cases including Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and Stenberg v. Carhart (2000).