Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
it is argued that living people and living organisms do not form mutually
exclusive realms in cytological assessments.
The ways in which health professionals refl ect on their work in the
'sorting out' of deviation from normality is discussed also in Chapter 4.
In this chapter Kristin Zeiler explores a case of diagnostic technology in
reproductive health care, the pre-implantantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
The availability and use of assisted conception technologies combined with
PGD evoke moral, social and existential questions. When PGD is discussed
among health professionals and scientists, a number of stories are also told
in which interpretations of disease, choice and normality are combined and
re-combined in different ways. Three major types of stories or narratives are
discussed in this chapter:
narratives of life with genetic disease
,
narratives
of progress
and
narratives of ambivalence
. Interpretations of disease, choice
and normality are, in a variety of ways, components of the fabric of these
narratives, and they are used in the construction of a certain logic - as well
as in the questioning of this logic - within and throughout the different
narratives.
Technology in reproductive health is addressed also in Chapter 5, more
precisely the routine ultrasound scan in maternity health care. In this chapter,
Ann-Cristine Jonsson analyses the ways normality is communicated in regular
ultrasound examinations of healthy pregnant women.
The shimmering image
on the ultrasound screen does not speak for itself, it has to be interpreted as the
examination is being carried out. Ann-Cristine Jonsson explores this process
of interpretation with a focus on the midwife's professional perspective as
well as the parent's everyday perspective. The analysis reveals a process of
communication where a range of strategies are used to confi rm the normality
of the expected baby - strategies that can be understood as ways to deal
with a medical technology that confronts all parents-to-be with images of
their unborn baby. It is argued that this technology 'forces' the parents to
make sense of the visual images of the expected baby in a dialogue with the
practitioner - and that they are thus forced to a refl exivity concerning the
pregnancy, the baby and their future family.
The ultrasound scan is discussed again in Chapter 6. The scan is today
part of the health surveillance of all pregnant women in most Western
countries, and familiar to most of those concerned. At the same time,
the ultrasound technology has become more sophisticated and offers
possibilities to detect an increasing range of abnormalities in the foetus. One
of the recent developments is ultrasound nuchal translucency screening for
early detection of Down's syndrome. In this chapter Sonja Olin Lauritzen,
Susanne Georgsson Öhman and Sissel Saltvedt explore women's experiences
of false positive results of being at high risk after this screening. The analysis
focuses on how the women try to make sense of the high risk information
after the ultrasound scan and how they interpret the high risk fi gure, as well
as the women's refl ections on the normality of the baby-to-be. Of particular
