Description
Book SynopsisMagnetic Resonance Imaging, not so long ago a diagnostic tool of last resort, has become pervasive in the landscape of consumer medicine; images of the forbidding tubes, with their promises of revelation, surround us in commercials and on billboards. Magnetic Appeal offers an in-depth exploration of the science and culture of MRI, examining its development and emergence as an imaging technology, its popular appeal and acceptance, and its current use in health care. Understood as modern and uncontroversial by health care professionals and in public discourse, the importance of MRIor its supposed infallibilityhas rarely been questioned.
In Magnetic Appeal, Kelly A. Joyce shows how MRI technology grew out of serendipitous circumstances and was adopted for reasons having little to do with patient safety or evidence of efficacy. Drawing on interviews with physicians and MRI technologists, as well as ethnographic research conducted at imaging sites and radiology confer
Trade Review
Every chapter of Magnetic Appeal interrogates MRI from a different angle, each in turn questioning cultural assumptions in conjunction with the social, political, and economic relations that support and define the use of MRI. Taken together the chapters open a fascinating window into the realm of medical imaging technology.... A valuable read for those interested in medical technology, trends in healthcare, and science and technology studies, Magnetic Appeal brings to light the multiple factors that constitute our faith in medical technology.
* Sociology of Health and Illness *
Table of Contents1. MRI as Cultural Icon
2. Painting by Numbers: The Development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the Visual Turn in Medicine
3. Seeing Is Believing: The Transformation of MRI Examinations into Authoritative Knowledge
4. The Image Factory: Work Practices in MRI Units
5. The Political Economy of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
6. A Sacred Technology? Theorizing Visual Knowledge in the Twenty-first Century
Appendix: Research Methodology
References
Index
