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Performing Risk & Ethics in Clinicians’ Accounts of Stem Cell Liver Therapies

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Philosophies and Sociologies of Bioethics

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Abstract

In this paper we set out to explore the enactments of risk by clinicians involved in the development of stem cell therapy for liver disease. In the process, we contribute to a performative re-thinking of how ‘risk’ can be analytically treated in relation to health. The bulk of the paper, drawing on interview data, is concerned with how clinicians’ accounts about the risks entailed in their research-oriented work performatively ‘make’ clinicians themselves, but also various other ‘constituencies’ – notably, publics and regulatory actors, and also such diverse ‘entities’ as scientific rigour and ethics. We trace the ways in which they enact the complexities of taking risks in the context of public demands, regulatory constraints, and resource limitation and explore how clinicians tend to represent themselves as caught between the ‘rock of courage’ and the ‘hard place of caution’.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is based on two research projects: ESRC Stem Cell Initiative RES-340-25-0003 and RES-350-27-0001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Political Sciences, Brunel University London, London, UK

    Steven Wainwright & Clare Williams

  2. Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Mike Michael

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  1. Steven Wainwright
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  2. Mike Michael
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  3. Clare Williams
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Correspondence to Clare Williams .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Communications, Brunel University, London, United Kingdom

    Hauke Riesch

  2. School of History, Anthropology, Politics and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom

    Nathan Emmerich

  3. Department of Social & Political Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, Middlesex, United Kingdom

    Steven Wainwright

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Wainwright, S., Michael, M., Williams, C. (2018). Performing Risk & Ethics in Clinicians’ Accounts of Stem Cell Liver Therapies. In: Riesch, H., Emmerich, N., Wainwright, S. (eds) Philosophies and Sociologies of Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92738-1_9

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