Making and managing medical anomalies

Exploring the classification of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11923402
AutoresErik Børve Rasmussen (0000-0001-8781-0636, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen50
Número6
Páginas901-931
Fecha de publicación2020-07-15
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Studies of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0306312720940405
PMID32664820
OpenAlexW3042293304
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas47

This article explores the making and management of anomaly in scientific work, taking 'medically unexplained symptoms' (MUS) as its case. MUS is a category used to characterize health conditions that are widely held to be ambiguous, in terms of their nature, causes and treatment. It has been suggested that MUS is a 'wastebasket diagnosis'. However, although a powerful metaphor, it does neither the category nor the profession justice: Unlike waste in a wastebasket, unexplained symptoms are not discarded but contained , not ejected but managed . Rather than a 'wastebasket', I propose that we instead think about it as a 'junk drawer'. A junk drawer is an ordering device whose function is the containment of things we want to keep but have nowhere else to put. Based on a critical document analysis of the research literature on MUS (107 research articles from 10 medical journals, published 2001-2016), the article explores how the MUS category is constituted and managed as a junk drawer in medical science

Economic Justice · Epistemology · Function (biology · Linguistics · Metaphor · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Work (physics · Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills · Engineering · Law · Medicine · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments