The Media Ethics of Tele-Surgery Spectres

Bibliographic Data

ID6453596
AuthorsAdalberto Fernandes (0000-0002-9713-2186, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume15
Issue2
Pages201-223
Publication date2025-07-02
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSomatechnics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2044-0138 • E-ISSN: 2044-0146
PublisherEdinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3366/soma.2025.0460
OpenAlexW4411956888
LanguageEN
References cited27

Tele-surgery, with its attempts to create and break distances in the surgical act, can be interpreted through the figure of the ‘ghost.’ The ghost can be seen in the images, simulations, doubles, incorporeal aspects, and dematerialisation of the medical act that emerge with the increasing tele-technological mediations in medicine. However, speaking of ghosts in medicine seems to be a pathological discourse in itself. Only someone ill might still assert the existence of ghosts, because she believes in something that does not exist. Yet, this act of pathologising the ghost reveals a fear of the ghost, of the power it has to challenge health, and a power that must be controlled and addressed. According to Jacques Derrida, the ghost thus seems to have a paradoxical power that destabilises the well-ordered non-ghostly realm. This essay defends the thesis of the irreplaceability of the surgeon by the machine as the ghost of tele-surgery and a spectral ethics of surgery

Engineering ethics · Digital Imaging in Medicine · Engineering · Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation · Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts

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