Uncertainty in Medical Innovation

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Neonatology: A Permanent Dynamic of Change

   • Jessica Mesman

   Pages 1-18

3. Newly Born and Indeterminate

   • Jessica Mesman

   Pages 19-45

4. Co-travellers

   • Jessica Mesman

   Pages 46-79

5. Uncertain Trajectories

   • Jessica Mesman

   Pages 80-115

6. Beacons on the Horizon

   • Jessica Mesman

   Pages 116-151

7. The Moral Load

   • Jessica Mesman

   Pages 152-178

8. The End of the Journey

   • Jessica Mesman

   Pages 179-194

9. Back Matter

   Pages 195-219

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The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is a site where hi-tech medicine and vulnerable human beings come into close contact. Focusing on a number of medical and ethical challenges encountered by staff and parents, this book provides a new perspective on the complexity of these treatments and the inventiveness of those involved.

• care
• complexity
• innovation
• medicine
• Moral
• morality
• research

Winner of The Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize 2009

'[T]his book is a luminous example of the ethnographic method in healthcare research, of the power of observation and the salience of situated knowledges which the approach makes visible. It is most closely and faithfully observed, offering great detail and precision, while at the same time being written in a flowing and accessible style which engages the reader, drawing us into the action.' - Maggie Mort, Dept of Sociology & Division of Medicine, Lancaster University

• Maastricht University, The Netherlands

  Jessica Mesman

JESSICA MESMAN is Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology and Society Studies, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands. Her research interests and publications include the anthropology of knowledge and empirical ethics in critical care medicine, particularly on issues of uncertainty and resources of resilience in patient safety.

Policies and ethics