Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Medical technologies, the
life world and normality
An introduction
Sonja Olin Lauritzen and
Lars-Christer Hydén
In recent years, the role and social impact of medical technologies, in the
clinical world as well in the everyday world of patients, has become a topic
in social science, and particularly so in the sociology of health and illness.
The development of 'new' medical technologies has triggered a debate about
the consequences of medical technologies for defi nitions of health, illness
and disability as well as our understandings of the body. Some medical
technologies, such as genetic diagnostic testing, have the capacity to detect
deviance or disease before we ourselves are aware of any signs of illness.
Others, for example the ultra-sound scan or magnetic resonance imaging,
offer more and more sophisticated methods to 'look into the body' and have
the capacity to produce new images of the body. Medical technology is used
also to enhance health and normality, for example in plastic surgery or SSRI
medication, to mention just two examples.
The use of these and other medical technologies may provide 'a fountain of
hope' but they also introduce new ethical dilemmas and raises questions about
the 'natural' body and about how the line is drawn between health and illness
(Williams 1997). As a consequence, they may also create 'new illness'. The
body, Brown and Webster argue, has become more 'available, accessible, mobile
and dematerialized' (2004: 17). This, in turn, raises questions as to whether
or not medical technology is engendering 'a crisis of meaning surrounding the
human body at the turn of the 21st Century' (Williams 1997: 1047).
The introduction of new medical technologies as routine or large-scale
practices in health care will confront an increasing number of patients, as
well as practitioners, with new information about the body, new choices and
decisions to be taken. Of particular interest is the role technology plays in
the classifi catory system of medicine that defi nes normality and abnormality.
Within the sociology of health and illness, the impact of medical technologies
has been discussed in relation to the organization of health care, professional
practice as well as patients' experiences (Heath et al. 2003). However, there
is still a lack of knowledge about these rapidly changing scenarios in health
care and the ways medical technologies intervene into our lives and affect
our ideas about the healthy and the ill body, our self-identity and relations
to others.
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