HSS 3332 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Human Genome Project, Coronary Artery Disease, Angioplasty

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Health Sciences
• Course: HSS 3332
• Professor: Sarah Fraser

Document Summary

We shouldn"t assume that all new technologies are progressive, valuable or always of utility. We shouldn"t expect that it will be made equally available to all, or that it will always be happily embraced. Sociological skepticism knows that although many technological changes have global reach, they will be subject to vastly different local interpretations and uses. Technologies and the techniques, models, and assumptions on which they are based, are given meaning through the way they are tied into other technologies and social practices. The meaning of health technologies will vary in different settings (clinic, home, internet) Technologies are understood as an expression of, and thereby always expressed through, social relationships. They"re not materialized configurations but they bring together material, people and social meanings as congealed social relations . Medical technologies are two-sided: they provide new, more detailed sources of information about our illnesses but at the same time they also bring new forms of uncertainty and risk.