HPH2200EN - Ethnophysiology

Course description

Ethnophysiology is a realm of ethnomedicine that focuses on the psychology, attitudes, and behaviors of an indigenous populace in a specified ethnic, racial, or cultural group regarding how its residents typically perceive human bodily functions.

How this course benefits students

Missionary healthcare workers need to identify those factors that are endemic in the local culture that may potentially facilitate or impede their endeavors. This intelligence gathering and reconnaissance should be as comprehensive as possible during the preparatory phases and ongoing after their arrival on site.

Why this course is important

Knowing that there exists such a wide diversity of healthcare perceptions throughout the world and expecting the unexpected will facilitate the adjustment to otherworldly cultures and ethnic groups.

Credit hours
3 hours
Subject area
Human Physiology
Educational level
Associate
Distribution
Natural Sciences Distribution
Learning type
Instructional
Prerequisites
None
Upcoming terms
Pending
* Schedule subject to change. Please contact the Registrar's office with schedule questions.

How this course relates to missional core values

Biblically based

Missionary healthcare workers need to always find comfort and encouragement knowing that whenever they do their best, God will do the rest.

Missionally driven

Manifesting an enduring tenderheartedness and servile compassion towards the afflicted and needy will superbly witness to the world.

Contextually informed

Contextualizing the enrapturing hope of the Gospel through any missionary work is applicable and needed in every ethnic and geographic setting.

Interculturally focused

This course will heighten the students’ expectation of the obvious as well as unforeseen cultural obstacles that awaits them in every mission field.

Practically minded

Missionary healthcare workers need to keep their hearts upturned and be neither intimidated nor derailed by the pagan practices that they will encounter.

Experientially transformed

This course will greatly broaden the students’ awareness of the diversity of the healthcare mindsets, spiritual beliefs, and behaviors that are the norms in other societies yet so foreign to their own.