Graduate Student Wins Award for Research

Anthropology graduate student Aileen Watchko won an award for a poster based on her master’s thesis research at the October 2010 "Selling Sickness" international conference in Amsterdam. Her poster, entitled “The Unbranded Doctor – An Anthropological Perspective,” is based on research conducted at a private, general medical practice in Madras, Oregon. It seeks to understand physicians who have decided to become “unbranded” and reject the current, standard relationship between medical practitioners and the pharmaceutical industry. Understanding the issue through an anthropological perspective, the poster pays particular attention to the pharmaceutical gift cycle, the basis of the physician-pharmaceutical relationship.