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·樂普頓，曾就職於悉尼大學、查爾斯特大學和西悉尼大學，目前就職於堪培拉大學新聞與媒體研究中心。她在社會學、新聞傳播學和文化研究領域的跨學科研究做齣瞭眾多探索性和開拓性的成果，涉足醫學、健康、疾病和公共衛生的各個方麵，探討瞭風險、身體、食物、肥胖、情感、女性主義以及兒童與母親等諸多前沿議題。她*有論*17本，發錶學術論文130餘篇。其中影響頗為廣泛的*作包括《風險》(Risk)、《風險與社會文化理論》(Pissk and Sociocultural Theory)、《情感的自我：社會文化探索》(The Emotional Self: A Sociocultuml Exploratl’on)、《醫學的文化研究》(Meedicine as Culture)等。近期她正在進行與數字化和大數據時代有關的健康研究，並積*倡導將社交媒體作為學術研究的平颱。