ABSTRACT
This chapter is an account of two key episodes in the author's early days of living and working in the United States and can be read as a contribution to three sorts of literature by social scientists: medical sociologists' accounts of their own experiences of health and illness; that on 'lay' and 'professional' understandings of health states and the social distribution of knowledge; and anthropologists' and sociologists' autobiographical accounts of their fieldwork experiences. Following a brief introduction, giving some background to the experiences described, comes an account of the author's first encounter with the professional face of medicine in America. This is followed by an encounter with the lay side of American medicine at the Mug 'n' Muffin. The chapter also provides a reflection on the genre of confessional accounts by social scientists, focusing on their underlying motivation, style and audience.
