Abstract
Social studies of clinical problem solving in practice have worked to deconstruct cognitivist depictions of clinical reasoning and decision making. Rather than logical steps in a cognitive and unidirectional process, diagnosis and intervention are instead the end or even retrospect results of a complex process in which patient history, examination results, medical knowledge, established practice, technical and organisational arrangements, economic conditions, and other social and ethical concerns, are negotiated (Berg, 1992; Moser and Law, 2006; Goodwin, 2009). Further, a health problem is defined with the current therapeutic possibilities in view. This means that intervention or action is already intrinsic and built into the understanding of a problem in the first place. Marc Berg (1992) has argued that the way ‘patient problems’ are transformed into ‘solvable problems’ implies a disposal, an arrangement with a limited range of appropriate courses of action.
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© 2010 Ingunn Moser
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Moser, I. (2010). Diagnosing and Acting upon Dementia: Marte Meo. In: Büscher, M., Goodwin, D., Mesman, J. (eds) Ethnographies of Diagnostic Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230296930_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230296930_11
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