Technological Medicine: The Changing World of Doctors and Patients
229 pp, $30
New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0-5218-3569-5
- Eric G. Campbell, PhD, ReviewerMongan Institute for Health PolicyDepartment of MedicineHarvard Medical SchoolMassachusetts General HospitalBoston ecampbell@partners.org
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGY
- COSTS AND COST ANALYSIS
- HISTORY OF MEDICINE
- PATIENT-PHYSICIAN RELATIONSHIP
- TECHNOLOGY
The adoption and diffusion of technology in medicine has been a field of great scientific and policy interest for the better part of the last 5 decades. A recent text on this topic is Technological Medicine: The Changing World of Doctors and Patients, by Stanley Joel Reiser. This book explores the development, diffusion, adoption, and implications of several transformative medical technologies that have resulted in significant change in the way patients and physicians view and interact with each other. For each technology considered, Reiser provides a rich historical and sociological context that suggests several key lessons that seem widely applicable regardless of the technology under consideration.
The first key lesson is that new medical technologies almost always change the nature of the interactions between patients and caregivers. Reiser notes several excellent examples of this in his book. For instance, the use of the stethoscope led to a general …
