Thesis ID: CBB001562105

Under the Microscope: “Race”, Gender, and Medical Laboratory Science in Canada (2004)

unapi

Grant, Moira Margaret (Author)


University of Toronto
Muzzin, Linda


Publication Date: 2004
Edition Details: Advisor: Muzzin, Linda
Physical Details: 294 pp.
Language: English

Canada's third largest health profession, medical laboratory science, is a feminized and largely invisible profession in which the practitioners are not permitted to claim the knowledge that they create in their everyday work. My research documents inequitable practices as they can be seen in the experiences of medical laboratory technologists as well as in the institutionalized practices that discount their work. I describe my historical document analysis and survey of practitioners, situating myself as an insider making use of a critical feminist perspective. I address the social and historical foundations of the profession, issues of race and gender in laboratory work, and the implications of these findings for professional change in medical laboratory science. My historical analysis reveals that laboratory work and the division of labour in the laboratory arose within racist, sexist and classist practices of nineteenth-century science and medicine; my discussion lays out the relations of dominance by the medical profession that characterized the health professions throughout the twentieth century. I discuss 'race', gender and medical laboratory science, showing how men's and women's experiences in the profession differ in terms of their educational attainment, career advancement, workplace activities, and participation in part-time and contingency work. The racialized division of labour becomes apparent when laboratory workers above and below medical laboratory technologists are considered. My analysis of the experiences of medical laboratory technologists during health care restructuring demonstrates the impact of reductionist ideologies of cost and efficiency on the lives and work of laboratory practitioners, revealing the shift of control over laboratory work from the medical profession to administrators and corporate interests. I advocate several means of re-visioning of medical laboratory science to acknowledge the role of medical laboratory technologists in knowledge creation. As well, I suggest that research on the professions encourage inquiry into intersecting racist, sexist and classist practices; that researchers on race enhance their awareness of the potentially disadvantaging assumptions built into certain research practices; and that health policy-makers address the issue of toxic work environments, unvalued health care workers, and inequitable policy-making practices in order to safeguard health practitioners and the quality of patient care.

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Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 65/05 (2004): 1982. UMI pub. no. NQ9184.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001562105/

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Authors & Contributors
Azara, Liliosa
Tedesco, Luca
Musumeci, Emilia
Cegna, Annalisa
Loconsole, Matteo
Harriet L. Crosby
Journals
Medical History
Journal of Popular Culture
Journal of Medical Biography
Health and History
Ethnohistory: Journal of the American Society for Ethnohistory
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine
Publishers
Viella
University of California, San Diego
Editorial de la Universidad de Cantabria
University of California, Berkeley
Concepts
Medicine
Medicine and gender
Women in medicine
Women
Criminology
Positivism
People
Lombroso, Cesare
Wright, Jane C.
Zakrzewska, Marie E.
Calderone, Mary Steichen
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
18th century
Places
Italy
United States
Europe
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Canada
Australia
Institutions
Universität Göttingen
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