Handling tools and implements: teamwork & collaboration during surgical operations
Surgical procedures rely upon a complex array of tools and implements. Even brief delays in the provision of an instrument can threaten the performance of the procedure and lead to tensions within the surgical team.
In this project, we focus on their timely and relevant exchange and the ways in which surgical assistants prepare, pass and receive equipment. In particular, we address how assistants anticipate what tool is required, when and in what way, and hand implements to enable their immediate and largely unproblematic application.
We explore the ways in which the participants hands, ongoingly form and transform, to enable smooth and appropriate exchange and the ‘micro-interaction’, the agency, that underpins this complex, contingent process. In turn the analysis bears upon contemporary initiatives in ‘intelligent agency’ and the growing corpus of technical work concerned with developing robotic surgical assistants and addressing such matters touch, grip, transport and exchange.
Data consists of video recordings of surgical operations augmented by field studies and interviews with key personnel.
Publications
Heath, C.C and P. Luff (2021) Embodied Action, Projection and Institutional Action: The Exchange of Tools and Implements during Surgical Procedures Discourse Processes 58:3, 233-250
Heath, C.C and P. Luff (2021) Passing moments: handing and handling tools and implements during surgical procedures. In Cekaite, A. & L. Mondada (eds) Touch in social interaction: Touching moments. London: Routledge, 249-268
Heath, C., Luff, P., Sanchez Svensson, M., & M. Nicholls (2018) Exchanging implements: the micro-materialities of multidisciplinary work in the operating theatre. Sociology of Health & Illness (special issue on the Materialities of Care). Volume 40, issue 2, 297-313
Publications
Heath, C.C and P. Luff (2021) Embodied Action, Projection and Institutional Action: The Exchange of Tools and Implements during Surgical Procedures Discourse Processes 58:3, 233-250
Heath, C.C and P. Luff (2021) Passing moments: handing and handling tools and implements during surgical procedures. In Cekaite, A. & L. Mondada (eds) Touch in social interaction: Touching moments. London: Routledge, 249-268
Heath, C., Luff, P., Sanchez Svensson, M., & M. Nicholls (2018) Exchanging implements: the micro-materialities of multidisciplinary work in the operating theatre. Sociology of Health & Illness (special issue on the Materialities of Care). Volume 40, issue 2, 297-313
Principal Investigators
Christian Heath
Professor of Work and Organisation
Paul Luff
Professor in Organisations and Technology