Rethinking Health Professions in the 21st Century: Innovations, Interruptions, and Regenerations

Abstract

During the ‘Golden Age of Doctoring’ in the 1950s and 1960s, social scientists and anthropologists worked collaboratively in health professions schools to study training and education (Becker, 1962; Bucher and Strauss, 1961; Olesen and Wittaker, 1969). That interest waned over the next few decades, with limited moments of reemergence (Bloom, 1988). However, with the tremendous transformations that have occurred in the health professions in the past two decades, studies of health professions training and education have experienced a renaissance. From research on the role of embodiment and the senses in clinical skills training (Prentice, 2005; Johnson, 2008; Harris, 2016) to new tensions about professional values and standards (Cech, et al, 2017), scholars in STS and related fields are bringing novel theories and methodologies to the study of health professions education. The study of health professions education represents an important avenue of research for STS, given the health professions’ dynamic relationship with science and technology. This panel will trace innovations and regenerations in scholarship in this area, as well as analyze interruptions in its trajectory. We welcome submissions from a range of scholars working at the intersections of STS and health professions education whose research examines these innovations, interruptions, and regenerations. Topics may include standardization of clinical skills training and licensing; studies of knowledge and nonknowledge in health professions education; the historical factors shaping the rise of interprofessional education; the role of emotions, bodies and the senses in clinical training; the measurement and assessment of clinical skills and professional attributes; and other similar themes.

Individual Presentations

• Electronic Medical Record as a Trigger of Sociotechnical Controversies - Pablo Ignacio Hermansen, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Matías Valderrama; Martin Tironi

• Medical Education Research and the Limits of Objectivity - Kelly Underman, Drexel University

• Medical Training as a Transformative Experience: A Novel Perspective for Dehumanization in Medicine - Marcia Villanueva Lozano, UNAM

• New Technology as a Catalyst in the Transformation of Medical Specialties - Ann Lennarson Greer, University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

• Precision, Probability, and Uncertainty: Engaging with Experimental Medicine in the Context of Terminal Cancer - Michael Halpin; Dagoberto Cortez, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Framework for an Open-Access, Graph-Based Curriculum in Medical Education - Stephen P Winter, University of Chicago; Leah Brodsky, University of Chicago

Session Organizers

• Kelly Underman, Drexel University

• Alexandra Vinson, University of Michigan