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Inventing Traditions, Raising Expectations. Recent Debates on “Personalized Medicine”

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Individualized Medicine

Part of the book series: Advances in Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine ((APPPM,volume 7))

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, the term “Personalized Medicine” has been coined to enable collaborations between different stakeholders in and outside research units. As a concept, it constitutes an imaginary framework of expectations and claims for a better, patient-centered and efficient health care system. Rather than deciding whether such trends represent “hype” or “hope”, scholars from the social studies of technology and science emphasize that the expectations revolving around new technology are not only accessory parts of scientific inventions or innovation networks. Instead, they regard them essential in shaping these technologies. The aim of the following chapters 4 and 5 is twofold: (4) analyzing the semantic and socio-cultural contexts in which new technologies could come into being or be implemented on a larger scale (5) analyzing the continuing significance of epistemological key categories (e.g. the focus on the biological individuality) in the field of medical research and practice, and their influence on past visions of medical future.

Chapter 4 analyzes writings about “Personalized Medicine” addressed to a scientific and a popular public. They represent different promoting strategies while sharing normative assumptions that are rarely articulated: “Personalized Medicine” is made to appear to be part and parcel of a venerable tradition of past medical advances, an “invented tradition” that seems to herald a brighter and more democratic future for (Western) societies. Debates about the implications of new trends need to render the normativity of such claims explicit to allow for more informed judgments, rational critique and a more careful choice of research priorities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Geschichte, Theorie und Ethik der Medizin, Universitätsmedizin der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Am Pulverturm 13, 55131, Mainz, Germany

    Susanne Michl

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  1. Susanne Michl
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Correspondence to Susanne Michl .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University Medicine Greifswald, Department for Ethics, Theory and History in Life Sciences, Greifswald, Germany

    Tobias Fischer

  2. University of Greifswald, GANI_MED – Greifswald Approach to Individualized Medicine, Greifswald, Germany

    Martin Langanke

  3. University of Greifswald, GANI_MED – Greifswald Approach to Individualized Medicine, Greifswald, Germany

    Paul Marschall

  4. University Medicine of Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Institute for History, Theory and Ethic of Medicine, Mainz, Germany

    Susanne Michl

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Michl, S. (2015). Inventing Traditions, Raising Expectations. Recent Debates on “Personalized Medicine”. In: Fischer, T., Langanke, M., Marschall, P., Michl, S. (eds) Individualized Medicine. Advances in Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11719-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11719-5_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11718-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11719-5

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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