PhD Supervision Interests

Topics I would be interested in supervising include:

Diagnostic work in healthcare

Embodied knowledge

Accountability in healthcare

Medical practice, evidence and uncertainty

Medical science, technologies and devices

Profile

Research Interests

My current research interests focus on the development of embodied knowledge, its place in clinical practice and the processes of learning involved. Doctoral and postdoctoral research centred on notions of participation and accountability in healthcare and have culminated in my book 'Acting in Anaesthesia: Ethnographic Encounters with Patients, Practitioners and Medical Technologies'. Here, I draw on ethnographic material to explore the way that 'action' unfolds in a series of empirical cases of anaesthetic and intensive care practice. The 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 analysis is discussed in the light of movements such as evidence based medicine, clinical governance and professional accountability, all of which have become increasingly significant in the shaping and delivery of healthcare in recent years.

I am also working with Dr Buscher (Lancaster University) and Dr Mesman (Maastricht University) on an edited collection of papers on diagnostic work. This book brings together ethnographic studies of diagnostic work from a varied range of practices including railway maintenance, prison service, software development, helpline operators and medical work. The aim is to examine the practical achievement of diagnostic work in order to elucidate some of its collaborative, socio-material, technologically augmented processes and their political and ethical dimensions.

Current Teaching

I joined the Department of Medicine in October 2006 as a social science lecturer in medical education with responsibility for the Problem-Based Learning element of the curriculum. I also convene Special Studies Modules on various aspects of the social sciences relevant to medicine and am one of the convenors of the 'Critical Thinking Module' which involves the production and peer review of a research proposal. My PhD supervision has thus far focussed around ethnographic studies of healthcare practices analysed primarily from a science and technology studies perspective but also drawing more broadly on medical sociology, feminist technoscience, ethnomethodology and workplace studies.

• ITEMS - Identifying Trends in European Medical Space

  01/06/2003 → 30/09/2006
  The Lancaster workpackage involved investigating the training needs of PhDs and post-doctoral fellows in humanities and social studies of health and medicine across the EC network The Institute for ... Read more»

• Problem of Expertise in Anaesthesia

  01/04/2000 → 01/03/2002
  Funded by the NHS Executive (North West), this ethnographic study combined observation of anaesthetic work and interviews with the anaesthetic team in an English hospital. Our principal aim was to und ... Read more»