Deadline for abstract submission extended until: February 15, 2018
<br>
<br>Please Consider submitting your paper to our panel at STS Italia Conference:
<br>
<br>Track 9 - Possibilities of Inclusion and Action from ‘Below’ in Medical
<br>Governance
<br>
<br>http://bit.ly/2EisWgj
<br>
<br>The organization of medical research and practice was traditionally
<br>perceived as the
<br>prerogative of expert knowledge. Such exclusivity entailed a specialized
<br>discourse,
<br>monopoly over knowledge, guild-like organizational arrangements, authority
<br>and
<br>hierarchical power relations. However, in the last two decades cracks have
<br>opened in
<br>expert monopoly over medical knowledge and practice. The democratic model
<br>pursued by western liberalism\capitalism has been extended to the medical
<br>domain,
<br>both on individual level, where patients are empowered to act as informed
<br>consumers using their own judgment and market options, such as
<br>direct-to-consumer
<br>genetic testing; and on public level, where following the paradigm of
<br>“participants as
<br>partners”, citizens are engaged in the design and governance of medical
<br>research,
<br>embodied in medical programs grounded on volunteer cohorts like the
<br>American “All
<br>of Us Research Program”. The acknowledgement of lay citizens’ authority
<br>in
<br>medical
<br>decisions regarding either themselves or the community, produces ambivalent
<br>effects. It makes possible the concurrent shaping of medical practices by
<br>multiple
<br>actors. Types of actors range from patients’ and patients’ relatives’
<br>groups, to activist
<br>groups and non-profit organizations for communal funding of therapies. This
<br>obviously leads to conflicts over authoritative knowledge. On the one hand,
<br>this
<br>pluralism is seen as a guarantee for individual autonomy and for equitable
<br>pursuit of
<br>the public interest. On the other hand, in the medical domain, legitimacy
<br>of lay
<br>knowledge is often questioned, as in the debate on the use of “Dr.
<br>Google”
<br>for
<br>medical advice, or over resistance to vaccine administration. Moreover,
<br>advances in
<br>precision medicine require in-depth knowledge in molecular biology and
<br>genomics,
<br>thus excluding lay citizens from influencing medical decision-making. In
<br>all these
<br>contradicting new possibilities, patients and publics are still on the
<br>receiving side,
<br>relying on knowledge produced and handed over by experts.
<br>
<br>In this panel, we wish to ask whether more substantial practices of
<br>democratizing
<br>contemporary medical governance are possible. Can we imagine a situation
<br>where
<br>medical innovation, clinical practice and performances of medical knowledge
<br>are
<br>participatory not only as a slogan? Where the position of patients as
<br>‘receivers’
<br>shifts? Where broader involvement of publics and individuals in medical
<br>decision-making
<br>is perceived as a legitimate form of action? On the structural level, can
<br>the
<br>benefits of advanced biomedical translational research be distributed in
<br>equitable
<br>ways? We welcome papers critically engaging with these questions and related
<br>issues in current biomedicine, from theoretical and empirical perspectives.
<br>
<br>Convenors:
<br>Nadav Even Chorev (European Institute of Oncology)
<br>Ilaria Galasso (University of Milan & European Institute of Oncology)
<br>Giuseppe Testa (University of Milan & European Institute of Oncology)
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