| "Technology and Medical Practice" reviews how sociologists have conceptualized medical technology. Although sociologists have been instrumental in analyzing the role of rapidly changing technologies in health care, they often did not do justice to the complexity of implementing new devices and techniques. Sociologists often underestimated medical technology when they focused mainly on changed human relationships and exempted the technology itself from sociological analysis. In other works, sociologists used the advent of medical technologies as an easy scapegoat to explain the explosion of health care costs and the "dehumanization" of medical care. These conceptualizations of technologies constitute different kinds of "technological determinism." In contrast, sociologists borrowing from recent writings of science and technology studies have studied the ways technologies shape our understanding of bodies, health, illness, identity, and professional relationships. At the same time, these authors also pay attention to the ways in which technologies are in turn shaped through interactions with people and institutions. The chapter explores the strengths and weaknesses of this new approach to medical technology. |