Journal Article

Rediscovering radiology: New technologies and remedial action at the worksite

Båth, Magnus, Johnsson, Åse Allansdotter, Rystedt, Hans, Ivarsson, Jonas, Asplund, Sara

2011

Overview

This study contributes to social studies of imaging and visualization practices within scientific and medical settings. The focus is on practices in radiology, which are bound up with visual records known as radiographs. The study addresses work following the introduction of a new imaging technology, tomosynthesis. Since it was a novel technology, there was limited knowledge of how to correctly analyse tomosynthesis images. To address this problem, a collective review session was arranged. The purpose of the present study was to uncover the practical work that took place during that session and to show how, and on what basis, new methods, interpretations and understandings were being generated. The analysis displays how the diagnostic work on patients' bodies was grounded in two sets of technologically produced renderings. This shows how expertise is not simply a matter of providing correct explanations, but also involves discovery work in which visual renderings are made transparent. Furthermore, the results point to how the disciplinary knowledge is intertwined with timely actions, which in turn, partly rely on established practices of manipulating and comparing images. The embodied and situated reasoning that enabled radiologists to discern objects in the images thus display expertise as inherently practical and domain-specific.

• Publisher: Sage Publications,SAGE Publications,Sage Publications Ltd
• Subject: Ad hoc special section on ethnomethodological studies of science, mathematics, and technical activity / Anatomy / Biomedical technology / Chest / computed tomography / Diagnostic systems / Discovery / Embodiment / Ethnomethodology / Experts / Humans / Image manipulation / Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Imagery / Imaging / Knowledge / Lung Diseases - diagnostic imaging / Lungs / Medical imaging / Medical practice / Medicine / New technology / Nodules / Patients / Pedagogik / Pedagogy / professional vision / Radiographs / Radiography / Radiography, Thoracic / Radiologi och bildbehandling / Radiologists / Radiology / Radiology and Medical Imaging / Reasoning / Social behavior / Social Studies / Social studies learning / Sociologi / Sociology / Technology / Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Visualization / Work place / workplace studies