VIGILANCE & INVISIBILITY

Western medicine arguably takes better care of physiological damage to the human organism than in any time in human history. Technological advances, indispensable to medical care, help build that claim. We both need and want what technology can generate. With the best of intentions, nevertheless, th [...]
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Western medicine arguably takes better care of physiological damage to the human organism than in any time in human history. Technological advances, indispensable to medical care, help build that claim. We both need and want what technology can generate. With the best of intentions, nevertheless, things can go awry. Polarization is an intellectual and practical dead end. It does not suffice to complain that caregivers feel pinched between caring and monitoring technology. It contributes nothing to put the finger on these already well documented tensions. The enlightening act is to stop the polarization. A first step is to heal the separations, the divisions, the antinomies. In the high tech wards, caring and technology are of equal values, indispensable to one another.

This thesis focuses on the relationship between technology and caring in technological intense environments. The result shows that an intensive care unit is a cognitive and emotional complex environment where caregivers juggle a precarious handful of cards. The patient and the apparatus easily meld into a unit, one item to be regulated and read. From the patients' perspective, caregivers demonstrate keen vigilance over technological devices and measured parameters, but pay scant attention to patients' stories and experiences. Technical tasks take precedence or have more urgency than caring behaviour.

Caregivers need to be aware that the roar of technology silences the subtle attempts of the critically ill or injured person to express his or her needs. No machine can solely replace the art of healing. A caring attitude that ameliorates suffering, quickens healing, and promotes all dimensions of wellness must be the most important endeavours of every caregiver and the goals of caring science. These can not be done without ascertaining what each individual patient wants or needs. It is a question of balancing state-of-the-art technology with integrative and comprehensive care, of harmonizing the demands of subjectivity with objective signs.