Understanding surgical craft in the changing context of technology, transformation of healthcare and marketization: A case study on surgeons in İstanbul, Turkey

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Sosyoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2016

Öğrenci: CİHAN GÜLŞAH BAŞKAVAK

Danışman: HEDİYE SİBEL KALAYCIOĞLU

Özet:

This dissertation aims to understand surgical work as a craft and explore how surgery maintains its craft character in the face of transformations in medical technologies and the social organization of healthcare. A conceptual framework that defines the basic components of surgical craft is developed for this aim. Based on this conceptual framework, the interaction between surgical craft and technology is investigated in the context of surgery’s relations with the state, market and patients. Contemporary Turkey provides a significant case where the transformation of the healthcare system and the general trend toward the marketization of health as well as intensive investment in medical technologies are observed. The field research conducted in Istanbul as part of the dissertation includes in-depth, semi-structured interviews with twenty-six surgeons from six different surgical branches as well as observations in hospitals and operating theaters. The findings of the study indicate a generational differentiation among surgeons regarding their adaptation to new technologies and a variation in the ways surgeons adopt, resist or cope with the transformations in their relation with the market, state and patients.