![[Search]](/static/images/search.gif){kind=small}
![[A-Z Index]](/static/images/az.gif){kind=small}
![[Contact]](/static/images/contact.gif){kind=small}
![[University of Cambridge]](/static/images/identifier2.gif){kind=small}
![[Talks.cam]](/static/images/talkslogosmall.gif)
Thursday 16 October 2014, 16:30-18:00
Pregnancy testing before DIY: rethinking the patient-doctor-laboratory relationship
- đ¤ Speaker: Jesse Olszynko-Gryn (Department of History and Philosophy of Science)
- đ Date & Time: Thursday 16 October 2014, 16:30 - 18:00
- đ Venue: Seminar Room 2, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Abstract
Pregnancy testing has never been easier. For countless women, the home pregnancy test, a ubiquitous diagnostic tool/retail product, mediates between the uncertainty of a missed period and the decision either to prepare for motherhood or to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Yet, although home testing has transformed the experience of pregnancy as much as ultrasound or amniocentesis, very little is known about its history. This talk will tell the story of laboratory pregnancy testing in Britain before the first DIY tests of the 1970s. It will argue that the market for a then controversial diagnostic service was sustained less by imposed medicalisation or the managerial state than by the entrepreneurial testers and consumers who helped to create and maintain demand. It will also rethink the patient-doctor relationship by placing routine testing more centrally in our historical understanding of modern laboratory medicine.
Series This talk is part of the Departmental Seminars in History and Philosophy of Science series.
Included in Lists
- All Talks (aka the CURE list)
- Biology
- Cambridge talks
- Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit Special Seminars
- Departmental Seminars in History and Philosophy of Science
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care
- Featured lists
- hc446
- History and Philosophy of Science long list
- History of Medicine Seminars
- jer64's list
- Life Sciences
- Life Sciences
- List 1
- ME Seminar
- my_list
- other talks
- Philosophy and History of Science
- Philosophy Events
- PublicHealth@Cambridge
- Seminar Room 2, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
- Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
- yk449
Note: Ex-directory lists are not shown.