Uncertainty in Medical Innovation : Experienced Pioneers in Neonatal Care

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is a site where hi-tech medicine and vulnerable human beings come into close contact. Focusing on a number of medical and ethical challenges encountered by staff and parents, this book provides a new perspective on the complexity of these treatments and the inventiveness of those involved. Medical innovations not only create new treatment opportunities, but also new problems and dilemmas for medical practitioners and patients. Uncertainty in Medical Innovation is a qualitative analysis of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that explores the medical and ethical complexities and uncertainties that new technology has created across the medical arena. As a site where hi-tech medicine and exceptionally vulnerable humans come into direct contact, a study of the NICU can reveal how society responds to health innovations for medical interventions, and explore how decision-making is carried out on a day-to-day basis. The book analyses what actually occurs at the interface between medical diagnosis and prognosis, actors and technology and argues that moral boundaries and the ethics of health care are being reshaped by technological advances Front Matter....Pages i-xi Neonatology: A Permanent Dynamic of Change....Pages 1-18 Newly Born and Indeterminate....Pages 19-45 Co-travellers....Pages 46-79 Uncertain Trajectories....Pages 80-115 Beacons on the Horizon....Pages 116-151 The Moral Load....Pages 152-178 The End of the Journey....Pages 179-194 Back Matter....Pages 195-219