Abstract

RAPOSO, Hélder. Uncertainty and redefinitions of the medical work: a case study on the hereditary genetic cancer counseling. Sociologia [online]. 2013, vol.25, pp.189-209. ISSN 0872-3419.

The present article is the result of a sociological investigation project on the medical uncertainties in the context of the genetic counseling in the area of the hereditary cancer. Having as groundwork a case study developed in the scope of a family risk assessment in an oncologic hospital unit, the aim is to identify and analyze the new uncertainty dimensions emerging from this specific clinical context and highlight the way how these redefine the work practices as well as the clinical judgments. The analytical framework which organizes the sociological approaches about these new uncertainties is developed from the examination of two favoured axes related to the scientific profile of this biomedical area. The reconfiguration of the illness and medicine conception and the paradoxes of its predictive logic.

Keywords : Uncertainty; Medicine; Genetic counseling; Cancer.

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