What is seen on the screen? exploring collaborative interpretation, representational tools, and disciplined perception in medicine

Diagnostic decision-making in medicine involves meaning-making of what can be seen on medical images, such as positron emission tomography (PET) pictures. This meaning-making is seldom an individual activity; rather it involves interactional practices between clinical staff, and between the physician and the specific representational technology. This poster presentation contributes to earlier studies on professional vision and disciplined perception in that it emphasizes the role of feedback, power relations, and ontogeny that shape collaborative interpretation of what is seen on the screen. Taking an analytical perspective founded in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this study will closely examine participants of a medical training in PET reading to be held in a Finnish university hospital in spring 2009. Video-recorded data will be analyzed using discourse analytical methods with a focus in understanding the appropriation of professional concepts and analytical skills in relation to feedback, ontogeny, and power. Practical and theoretical implications are outlined.