Anthropologists commonly will seek to be trained as indigenous experts. So I have colleagues trained as Mayan day keepers and Culina shaman. Me, I got trained as a medical scientist (Brown University Medical School, Dept of Community Medicine). That post-doc gave me a window into how we produce medical scientists and the credentials to function as one. And so I have. From a Brown-affiliated start-up in the decision sciences to Chief Science Officer at a public (AMEX and NASDAQ) company, and interesting stops in between. But the other day I was on the phone with some goofs (chief of surgery and a exercise physiologist) who were quizzing me about statistical validity in a research trial I ran and realized I, too, had become stone. Rather than laugh at their phenomenally naive questions about p-values, I engaged them.
That’s when I realize I was losing my perspective as a critical thinker.
But, after a couple of drinks (and reading some Foucault out loud), I came to the few senses I have left. I know a bit about the medical industry, from the basic ‘science’ perspective, to what it takes to convince investors to join a company and what it can mean to patients who benefit (I have spend many years directly in clinical settings with pretty sick folks). And all of it is with an anthropologist’s eye to the culture that drives the machine. You are welcome to take objection with it all, as I am not the best anthropologist, scientist, nor executive. But I am at least all of them. Oh, and I am my daughter’s basketball coach, which trumps all that noise.
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