Technology and Medical Practice : Blood, Guts and Machines

The advanced technologies being used in diagnosis and care within modern medicine, whilst supporting and making medical practices possible, may also conflict with established traditions of medicine and care. The changes in medical practices brought about by the involvement of artefacts highlight some interesting questions to be addressed in this volume through a focus on various technological practices within hospitals and sociotechnical systems of care.

The advanced technologies being used in diagnosis and care within modern medicine, whilst supporting and making medical practices possible, may also conflict with established traditions of medicine and care. What happens to the patient in a technologized medical environment? How are doctors'', nurses'' and medical scientists'' practices changed when artefacts are involved? How is knowledge negotiated, or relations of power reconfigured? Technology and Medical Practice addresses these developments and dilemmas, focusing on various practices with technologies within hospitals and sociotechnical systems of care. Combining science and technology studies with medical sociology, the history of medicine and feminist approaches to science, this book presents analyses of artefacts-in-use across a variety of settings within the UK, USA and Europe, and will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of science and technology alike.