Dent, Mike (1988) Doctors and computers. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The twin concerns of the thesis are (a) to develop a labour process analysis that is able to account for professional work and (b) in so doing to explain the reasons for hospital doctors various responses to the introduction of computer systems into medical work.

This thesis constitutes a study of hospital doctors (clinicians) use of information technology in their clinic work. The first part reviews the literature and general developments in medical computing in relation to a theoretical analysis of the organisation and control of the clinic/medical labour process. The second part consists of an ethnographic study of the introduction of computer-based medical information systems into three hospitals; two being case studies of renal units and associated clinics and the third a study of an outpatients' department at a small acute hospital. The computer systems involved either replaced or supplemented the traditional form of the medical records and for this reason it was possible to focus on the role of these organisational records in the maintenance and reproduction of dominance and subordination within the labour process of clinic/medical work.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Medicine -- Data processing
Official Date:	1988
Dates:	Date Event 1988 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Sponsors:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain)
Extent:	xi, 385 leaves
Language:	eng

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