Cart

Unlocking potential with the best learning and research solutions

Look Inside Acting in Anaesthesia

Acting in Anaesthesia
Ethnographic Encounters with Patients, Practitioners and Medical Technologies

$120.00 (C)

Part of Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives

Author: Dawn Goodwin, Lancaster University

Date Published: February 2009
availability: Available
format: Hardback
isbn: 9780521882064

Rate & review

$ 120.00 (C)
Hardback

Add to cart Add to wishlist

Other available formats:
eBook

Looking for an examination copy?

This title is not currently available for examination. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.

Description

Contents

Resources

Courses

About the Authors

In recent years, evidence-based medicine (EBM), clinical governance and professional accountability have become increasingly significant in shaping the organization and delivery of healthcare. However, these notions all build upon and exemplify the idea of human-centred, individual action. In this book, Dawn Goodwin suggests that such models of practice exaggerate the extent to which practitioners are able to predict and control the circumstances and contingencies of healthcare. Drawing on ethnographic material, Goodwin explores the way that ‘action’ unfolds in a series of empirical cases of anaesthetic and intensive care practice. Anaesthesia configures a relationship between humans, machines and devices that transforms and redistributes capacities for action and thereby challenges the figure of a rational, intentional, acting individual. This book elucidates the ways in which various entities (machines, tools, devices and unconscious patients as well as healthcare practitioners) participate, and how actions become legitimate and accountable.
- The use of detailed ethnographic material (made possible by having worked in the field prior to research)
- Extends the empirical reach of the 'learning in doing' series into the field of health and medicine
- Considers the implications of sociological theorising for practitioners
Read more
Reviews & endorsements
"In her theorisation of action, Goodwin draws insights literally from the cutting edge: from bringing the body through the trauma of surgery. This book should be read by all who are concerned with the production of safety and the relationship between agency and accountability."—Maggie Mort, Lancaster University, UK
"For the practitioner, Goodwin's work acts as a mirror, simultaneously reflecting and illuminating anaesthetic work. We live in an age where professionals are increasingly called upon to account for what they do, and healthcare policy moves ever towards standardisation. This book is a timely and scholarly reminder that personal routines and practices are essential in maintaining the quality and safety of patient care in anaesthesia."—Andrew Smith FRCA, Royal Lancaster Infirmary, UK
See more reviews
Customer reviews

Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review

Log in to review

Review was not posted due to profanity
×

, create a review

(If you're not , sign out)

Please enter the right captcha value

Please enter a star rating.

Your review must be a minimum of 12 words.

How do you rate this item?

Reviews must contain at least 12 words about the product.

×

Product details
- Date Published: February 2009
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521882064
- length: 204 pages
- dimensions: 234 x 162 x 21 mm
- weight: 0.47kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Understanding anaesthesia: theory and practice
2. Refashioning bodies, reshaping agency
3. Accounting for incoherent bodies
4. Teamwork, participation, and boundaries
5. Embodied knowledge: coordinating spaces, bodies, and tools
6. Recognising agency, legitimating participation, and acting accountably in anaesthesia.
Look Inside
Author
Dawn Goodwin, Lancaster University
Dawn Goodwin is a social science lecturer in medical education and director of problem-based learning and teaches courses on various aspects of science, technology and medicine to both medical and social science students. Her current research interests focus on the development of embodied knowledge, its place in clinical practice and the processes of learning involved. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research centred on the notions of participation and accountability in healthcare practice. Along with colleagues Dr Buscher and Dr Mesman, Dawn Goodwin is currently editing a book of ethnographic studies of diagnostic work drawn from a range of disciplines.