Theme 11 and 12

• Technology


  Any human-made object to perform a task
• Technology has made our lives easier
• Technology may have depersonalized medical care
• Foetal monitors


  • Can depersonalise childbirth when healthcare provider stares at the screen rather than pay attention to the pregnant mother
• Ultrasound imaging of foetuses


  • Can personalise pregnancy when fathers visualise their future children as real
• Such technologies can create a setting in which mothers/fathers and healthcare providers can discuss the emotional aspects of pregnancy and parenting
• There is a considerable need to collect and store health information/data on patients using computerised medical databases, hoping that this will help identify and reduce medical/medication errors
• Social construction of technology

  The process through which groups of individuals or institutions decide which potential technologies should be pursued and which should be adopted
• The social construction of technology is a political process, reflecting the needs, desires, and power of various social groups
• Groups involved in the social construction of technology

  • Manufacturers of health products
  • Doctors
  • Pharmacists
  • The government
  • Consumers
• As a result, harmful technologies are sometimes developed and adopted
• CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation)


  The purpose is to restore life to those whose hearts and lungs have stopped working
• Before CPR, the notion of death was in the hands of God/creator/high-power, and dead was considered dead
• Since the rise of modern medicine, doctors have been challenged to find ways to restore life to those who die sudden and common deaths caused by stroke or heart disease, fire, drowning or struck by lightning
• CPR techniques appear to offer a "good death" in such sudden circumstances
• Even today, money and time is spent teaching healthcare providers and the public to perform CPR especially as part of first-aid or in emergency response situations
• According to medical research, emergency doctors and emergency medical technicians' resuscitation almost never succeeds (except in certain situations 1% to 3% chance of survival)
• For some individuals, survival may be brief and may be accompanied by neurological damage
• Why CPR has become widely adopted

  • CPR takes some of the suddenness of death away
  • Allows families and friends to believe they have done everything possible by getting their loved ones to treatment as fast as possible
  • Gives families and friends time to gather and to recognise that death is imminent
  • It gives healthcare providers a sense of accomplishment as they fight to keep their patients' bodily organs functioning for as long as possible
• Death brokering


  The process through which medical providers make death explainable, culturally acceptable, and individually meaningful
• For these reasons, CPR has become a valued and expected ritual in healthcare
• Newborn screenings for genetic diseases


  • Some newborns are correctly or incorrectly diagnosed
  • Further testing and observation resolves the incorrect diagnoses
  • This process can however be agonising for parents instructed to carefully observe a range of potential symptoms or problems
• Even when healthcare practitioners conclude that the newborn is not at risk, parents may find it difficult to not worry anymore
• Fears may lead to parents limiting their children's involvements in anything they may perceive to cause harm to their children
• Technological imperative


  The belief held by both healthcare providers and consumers, that technology is almost always good, therefore it is almost always appropriate to use all existing technological interventions, regardless of their cost
• Technological imperative may be reinforced by corporations that have a vested economic interest in selling a particular technology and healthcare providers with a vested interest in offering a technology
• Technological imperative is cemented when insurance companies, medical associations and government regulatory agencies identify the use of a particular technology as the "standard of care" for treating or diagnosing a given illness
• In some cases, healthcare providers who choose to not use a specific technology may risk a reduction in the number of patients or malpractice
• Prostate cancer testing through prostate-specific antigen (PSA)

  • PSA tests are rated as highly inaccurate but can also correctly identify cancer cells
  • The inaccurate, overdiagnosis and overtreatment comes with: unnecessary emotional trauma, financial costs and painful procedures
  • Those with correct diagnosis of cancer are likely to die from other health causes before the cancer becomes symptomatic
• Decades ago, health care was an intensely 'hands-on' experience
• Healthcare providers give minimal attention to patients' reports of their health and more attention to results from medical tests
• Medical tests are largely performed not by medical doctors but by medical technicians who collect and analyse blood samples, CT scans, MRI's, etc
• Health technology has also given rise to a range of healthcare occupations
• New technologies have also shifted care away from healthcare providers only onto patients and their families
• Some families have the opportunity and the financial ability to provide high-technology in the home


  • Injecting insulin in diabetic patients to operating ventilator machines for those who cannot breathe on their own
• Telemedicine


  A system of healthcare delivery in which healthcare providers examine distant patients using telecommunications technology
• The idea is to enhance access to healthcare
• There has been consistent evidence of general satisfaction with telemedicine (among both healthcare providers and clients) whether satisfaction is measured in quality of treatment, attitude or behaviour terms
• Telemedicine is a cost effective option owing to the ever-rising costs of medical care and medical care demands by those with accessibility challenges and the aging population usually with limitations in mobility
• Concerns of diagnostic accuracy and Social policy implications as well (The usual patient-healthcare provider encounter is changed from one of human contact to one of electronic contact and information exchange)