Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces

Clinicians' Use of Space and Bodies During Diagnosis

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2248953
AutoresJohn Gardner (0000-0001-7417-348X, Science and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU) Department of Sociology University of York UK), Clare Williams (0000-0001-6315-5534, Department of Sociology and Communications Brunel University London UK)
Año2015
Volumen37
Número5
Páginas765-781
Fecha de publicación2015-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.12233
PMID25683780
OpenAlexW2124946309
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas20
Referencias citadas46

An emerging body of literature in sociology has demonstrated that diagnosis is a useful focal point for understanding the social dimensions of health and illness. This article contributes to this work by drawing attention to the relationship between diagnostic spaces and the way in which clinicians use their own bodies during the diagnostic process. As a case study, we draw upon fieldwork conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team providing deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat children with a movement disorder called dystonia. Interviews were conducted with team members and diagnostic examinations were observed. We illustrate that clinicians use communicative body work and verbal communication to transform a material terrain into diagnostic space, and we illustrate how this diagnostic space configures forms of embodied 'sensing-and-acting' within. We argue that a 'diagnosis' can be conceptualised as emerging from an interaction in which space, the clinician-body, and the patient-body (or body-part) mutually configure one another. By conceptualising diagnosis in this way, this article draws attention to the corporal bases of diagnostic power and counters Cartesian-like accounts of clinical work in which the patient-body is objectified by a disembodied medical discourse

Diagnostic test · Radiology · Space (punctuation) · Work-up · Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies · Computer Science · Empathy and Medical Education · Medicine · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Pediatrics