Sachi Matsuoka

Sachi Matsuoka is a senior assistant professor at Dokkyo Medical University, who started out as a clinical pharmacist before becoming a project coordinator for human-grassroots security projects granted by the Japanese Government on health and education issues in West Africa. After a career in the health and community sector, she entered academia, questioning what kind of formal and informal medical systems can be considered for people's preferred way of life, aging, sickness, and death, and especially those who are excluded from the public system and those who are difficult to treat with the so-called “medical care.”

Her current research topics include informal medicine, religious practices, and social services examining the relationship between formal and informal care. She has conducted qualitative and quantitative case studies in Kerala, Southern India along the lines of medical anthropology-based interdisciplinary studies.

●Formal and informal medicine, Social service, and Religious practices for the community

Examining the roles of informal service/care/medicine such as traditional medicine and religious practices (especially seva), as well as considering the interrelationship between formal and informal community health care systems of Southern India.

●Embodied knowledge and skills of medical practitioners, with a special focus on the learning process.
Comparative study of the embodied knowledge and skill acquisition for medical providers between formal traditional medical doctors (Ayurveda doctors) and informal medical practitioners (vaidya) in Southern India.