Medicine as Culture is unlike any other sociological text on health and medicine. For many lecturers and students the book has become a classic text, which combines perspectives drawn from a wide variety of disciplines including sociology, anthropology, social history and cultural studies. The aim of the book is to tease out how medicine and health care are sociocultural constructions, ranging from mass media and high cultural representations of illness, disease and health care workers to the power dynamics of the doctor-patient relationship. For its 3rd edition, Medicine as Culture has been updated to cover new and emerging areas of interest including : " The role of computerized communication technologies in providing access to medical information and support for patients; " New medical technologies and how they contribute to people's understandings of their bodies and selfhood; " How bioethical issues and dilemmas are negotiated in clinical settings; " The changing role of nurses in healthcare provision; " New research in neuroscience on the plasticity of the brain and the notion of 'brain types' and how this research contributes to novel understandings of the brain in lay and medical cultures. Contextualising introductions and discussion points in every chapter make Medicine as Culture, 3rd edtiion a rigorous yet accessible text for students studying socio-cultural perspectives on health and medicine.

黛博拉·乐普顿，曾就职于悉尼大学、查尔斯特大学和西悉尼大学，目前就职于堪培拉大学新闻与媒体研究中心。她在社会学、新闻传播学和文化研究领域的跨学科研究做出了众多探索性和开拓性的成果，涉足医学、健康、疾病和公共卫生的各个方面，探讨了风险、身体、食物、肥胖、情感、女性主义以及儿童与母亲等诸多前沿议题。她*有论*17本，发表学术论文130余篇。其中影响颇为广泛的*作包括《风险》(Risk)、《风险与社会文化理论》(Pissk and Sociocultural Theory)、《情感的自我：社会文化探索》(The Emotional Self: A Sociocultuml Exploratl’on)、《医学的文化研究》(Meedicine as Culture)等。近期她正在进行与数字化和大数据时代有关的健康研究，并积*倡导将社交媒体作为学术研究的平台。