Article ID: CBB131501262

Making and managing medical anomalies: Exploring the classification of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ (December 2020)

unapi

This article explores the making and management of anomaly in scientific work, taking ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ (MUS) as its case. MUS is a category used to characterize health conditions that are widely held to be ambiguous, in terms of their nature, causes and treatment. It has been suggested that MUS is a ‘wastebasket diagnosis’. However, although a powerful metaphor, it does neither the category nor the profession justice: Unlike waste in a wastebasket, unexplained symptoms are not discarded but contained, not ejected but managed. Rather than a ‘wastebasket’, I propose that we instead think about it as a ‘junk drawer’. A junk drawer is an ordering device whose function is the containment of things we want to keep but have nowhere else to put. Based on a critical document analysis of the research literature on MUS (107 research articles from 10 medical journals, published 2001–2016), the article explores how the MUS category is constituted and managed as a junk drawer in medical science.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB131501262/

Similar Citations

Article Annemarie Jutel; (2021)
Uncertainty and the inconvenient facts of diagnosis (/isis/citation/CBB249581784/)

Article Alexandra Hillman; Joanna Latimer; (April 2019)
Somaticization, the making and unmaking of minded persons and the fabrication of dementia (/isis/citation/CBB034246323/)

Article Anne Kerr; Tineke Broer; Emily Ross; Sarah Cunningham Burley; (August 2019)
Polygenic risk-stratified screening for cancer: Responsibilization in public health genomics (/isis/citation/CBB774833590/)

Article Julia Swallow; Alexandra Hillman; (April 2019)
Fear and anxiety: Affects, emotions and care practices in the memory clinic (/isis/citation/CBB055124638/)

Article Koichi Kameda; Ann H Kelly; Javier Lezaun; Ilana Löwy; (October 2021)
Imperfect diagnosis: The truncated legacies of Zika testing (/isis/citation/CBB603527462/)

Article Rachel Cooper; (2018)
Understanding the DSM-5: Stasis and Change (/isis/citation/CBB641094844/)

Article Kruse, Corinna; (October 2013)
The Bayesian approach to forensic evidence: Evaluating, communicating, and distributing responsibility (/isis/citation/CBB366782410/)

Article Jorge Castillo-Sepúlveda; Francisco Tirado; Ana Gálvez; (2023)
Biopolitics and speculative objects in Chilean health projects (/isis/citation/CBB679456149/)

Article Abeysinghe, Sudeepa; (2014)
An Uncertain Risk: The World Health Organization's Account of H1N1 (/isis/citation/CBB001420418/)

Article Moran Levy; (2022)
Adequate trials: How the search for a cure shaped leukemia diagnosis (/isis/citation/CBB342218958/)

Article Margherita Benzi; (2017)
Norma e caso individuale nella diagnosi medica: stili di ragionamento (/isis/citation/CBB613023465/)

Article Kurcgant, Daniela; Ayres, José Ricardo de Carvalho Mesquita; (2011)
Crise não epiléptica psicogênica: história e crítica de um conceito (/isis/citation/CBB001420540/)

Book Wright, David; (2011)
Downs: The History of a Disability (/isis/citation/CBB001200871/)

Authors & Contributors
Hillman, Alexandra
Annemarie Jutel
Koichi Kameda
Levy, Moran
Comandini, Ana C. Gálvez
Mant, Madeleine
Concepts
Diagnosis
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Medicine
Certainty; uncertainty
Nosology; classification of diseases
Epistemology
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
19th century
18th century
Places
Great Britain
Papua New Guinea
London (England)
United States
Sweden
Europe
Institutions
World Health Organization (WHO)
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment