Making and managing medical anomalies
Exploring the classification of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11923402 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Erik Børve Rasmussen (0000-0001-8781-0636, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 901-931 |
| Publication date | 2020-07-15 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Studies of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0306312720940405 |
| PMID | 32664820 |
| OpenAlex | W3042293304 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 47 |
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
Purity and Danger
Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions
Proofs and Refutations
T. S. Kuhn and Social Science
Using Documents in Social Research
Polyhedra and the Abominations of Leviticus
Putting a Name to It
Sorting Things Out
Medically unexplained symptoms and the disease label
Scientific Work and Uncertainty
Co‐optation, Commodification and the Medical Model
The Meaning of Patient Experiences of Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms
United We Stand
I just want permission to be ill
The classification and nomenclature of 'medically unexplained symptoms
Bio-Psycho-Social Reasoning in GPs' Case Narratives
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Evidence-Based Medicine, Clinical Uncertainty, and Learning to Doctor
Handbook of Medical Sociology
The Disappearance of the Sick-Man from Medical Cosmology, 1770-1870
A World of Standards but not a Standard World
Three Fragments From a Sociologist's Notebooks
The construction of medical disposals Medical sociology and medical problem solving in clinical practice
Writing the patient down and out
Illnesses you have to fight to get
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |