:: Christa B. Teston, Rowan University | 19 March 2010 ::

[ From Artifact to Action ] The Role of Medical Images in Cancer Care

Deliberations

[ Q’s ]How is risk

communicated?

How is evidence displayed?

How are decisions made?

[ Tufte (1992) :: Cholera ]

[ Tufte (1992) :: Challenger ]

[ Sauer (2003) :: Coal Mining ]

[ Herndl, Fennel, Miller (1991) :: Nuclear Power ]

[ site ]multidisciplinary medical workplace

Tumor Board meeting

[ methods ]Glaser & Strauss (1967)

Grounded Theory

Observational Heuristics

[ Q ]How is medical decision-making shaped by visual renderings of disease?

[ Fig. 1 ]

[ example ]1 tumor board deliberative

trace

5 10 15 20 25 30

Past Personal

Experience

Typical Practice

Standard of Care

Studies & Statistics

Path. & Rad.

Information

Background

Information

Passage of Time (minutes)

Kin

ds

of

Refe

ren

ces

? ?

“Seeing those images will

change minds.”:: Dr. Thomas | TB participant, oncologist ::

[ Fig. 2 ]

[ medical images ]materially rendered,

argumentatively deployed,

facilitate future action

[ visual rhetoric ]more than mere illustration,

epistemic in an ontological sense---

(Enos & Lauer, 1992; Scott, 1967; McNely & Teston, 2010)