Published by UBC Press, Canada, 2019

Author: Ariane Hanemaayer, Visiting Fellow 2019 – 2020

The Impossible Clinic traces the emergence of, and problems inherent in, EBM – an approach that requires doctors to integrate research evidence into their clinical decision making. EBM attempts to translate the results of medical research into recommendations for practice, to bring science straight to the bedside with the goals of medical standardisation. Ironically, however, when disciplinary regulation converges with EBM to produce systematic clinical practice guidelines, the outcome is antithetical to the aim. Ariane Hanemaayer uses a critical sociology approach to uncover the power relations underlying the contemporary organisation of the medical profession, arguing that EBM persists because it has congealed within the dominant liberal political strategy of governance, which seeks to improve health care “at a distance”, at the least cost, and without investment in infrastructure.

Ariane is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brandon University in Canada and currently a Visiting Fellow at CRASSH (2019 – 20) as well as a Visiting Research Associate at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

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