Abstract

SERRA, Helena. Livers and spleen: the social construction of medical decision-making. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2008, n.58, pp.47-70. ISSN 0873-6529.

The objective of this article is to analyse and discuss the medical decision-making processes surrounding access by waiting-list patients to a liver transplant. On the basis of an ethnographic study that took place in a specialised hospital unit, the most significant moments in the medical decision-making are selected, showing the complex negotiation processes among the different fields of medical expertise in attendance. The most recent sociological approaches, which fall within the area of social constructivism, constitute the basis of the analytical model proposed for the study of medical decision-making in the present study.

Keywords : decision-making; medical profession; liver transplant.

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