A study on the way cultures incorporate their remidies and medicines into western and specifically American medicine. How does the first generation’s interaction with American doctors and medicine differ from second and third generations. At what point do they go to the doctor (if at all)? How skeptical are they of doctors and medicine? Keep in mind while I won’t be doing the research (it’s just a proposal) it still has to be realistic and something that a graduate student could do. Also, what culture could I study?

Or

A study on medical school and the way patient interaction is being taught. Many more medical sociologists and anthropologists are being brought in to teach med students how to interact with patients from varying cultures and backgrounds in addition to other social factors that play into health (of which there are many more than most would like to believe). How are they being taught and how do the students  react to the education? Also, what specialties are attracting students? I know students don’t choose a specialty this soon, but the decrease of primary care physicians (for $$$ reasons), this may be a motivating factor for some to focus on a specialty early on. I’m near both Stanford and UCSF, so access to med students wouldn’t be too hard.

This has to be qualitative (ugh) in design. I had such a hard time with this. I kept thinking about potential topics in such a quantitative way. I’m still working through it.