Inventing Traditions, Raising Expectations. Recent Debates on “Personalized Medicine”

Michl, Susanne

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-11719-5_4

Cited by 4 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…5 Therefore, we propose to see PM as a work in progress and the label for a cluster of visions for the future of healthcare (cf. [ 14 , 18 , 40 ]). One of its key functions today is to bring together stakeholders and in order to do that it has to remain open to different and sometimes conflicting interpretations [ 16 , 41 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another and more serious problem with their argument is its naive assumption that biomedical literature is immune from stakeholders’ interests. It is hard not to see that the research community has a great stake in PM and that they are as vulnerable to the temptation of hype as any other stakeholder, to the point that social scientific and historical looks at PM have emphasised the key role of expectations in gaining momentum and shaping actual developments [ 11 , 14 , 15 , 40 , 58 – 62 ]. For fear of stakeholders’ vested interests they have appointed one group of stakeholders as the only authoritative voice, thus leaving their interests uncontrolled by any check and not counterbalanced by conflicting interests.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Views vary not only across stakeholders but also across circumstances, to the effect that the same stakeholders may express differing views according to their interlocutors. For instance, Susanne Michl [ 14 ] has shown that academic authors provide different visions of PM when they write for their peers and when they address the lay public. The list of stakeholders could be made longer, but the essential point is clear: any definition that reflects only a subset of uses (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that it is still something in the making, what PM will become depends on what the technologies can actually deliver and which decisions are made, which in turn depends on who gets involved, which ideals, values and interests different stakeholders want to realise, which alliances are formed among stakeholders, which compromises are made, which scientific discoveries take place etc. [ 14 , 18 , 59 ]. In view of this, the attempt to decide what PM will become is not only premature, but also fails to understand the current grip of the term.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless the popularity of the concept in biomedical sciences, health policy, science policy and in public discourse is a recent phenomenon that has been largely stimulated by advances in genomics and molecular biology [ 10 – 13 ]. 2 As a concept that concerns a broad range of stakeholders—scientists and policymakers, healthcare workers, the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries, IT network providers and users, health insurances and taxpayers, not to mention patients themselves—it is subject to a variety of different uses and interpretations [ 14 , 15 ]. With this kind of variety typically comes the Babel worry: are people speaking the same language and understanding each other?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Conceptual and terminological confusion around personalised medicine: a coping strategy

Grandis

Halgunset

2016

BMC Med Ethics

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BackgroundThe idea of personalised medicine (PM) has gathered momentum recently, attracting funding and generating hopes as well as scepticism. As PM gives rise to differing interpretations, there have been several attempts to clarify the concept. In an influential paper published in this journal, Schleidgen and colleagues have proposed a precise and narrow definition of PM on the basis of a systematic literature review. Given that their conclusion is at odds with those of other recent attempts to understand PM, we consider whether their systematic review gives them an edge over competing interpretations.DiscussionWe have found some methodological weaknesses and questionable assumptions in Schleidgen and colleagues’ attempt to provide a more specific definition of PM. Our perplexities concern the lack of criteria for assessing the epistemic strength of the definitions that they consider, as well as the logical principles used to extract a more precise definition, the narrowness of the pool from which they have drawn their empirical data, and finally their overlooking the fact that definitions depend on the context of use. We are also worried that their ethical assumption that only patients’ interests are legitimate is too simplistic and drives all other stakeholders’ interests—including those that are justifiable—underground, thus compromising any hope of a transparent and fair negotiation among a plurality of actors and interests.ConclusionAs an alternative to the shortcomings of attempting a semantic disciplining of the concept we propose a pragmatic approach. Rather than considering PM to be a scientific concept in need of precise demarcation, we look at it as an open and negotiable concept used in a variety of contexts including at the level of orienting research goals and policy objectives. We believe that since PM is still more an ideal than an achieved reality, a plurality of visions is to be expected and we need to pay attention to the people, reasons and interests behind these alternative conceptions. In other words, the logic and politics of PM cannot be disentangled and disagreements need to be tackled addressing the normative and strategic conflicts behind them.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Conceptual and terminological confusion around personalised medicine: a coping strategy

Grandis

Halgunset

2016

BMC Med Ethics

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Precision Medicine and Complexity

Aron

2019

Complex Systems in Medicine

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Between hype and hope: What is really at stake with personalized medicine?

Abettan

2016

Med Health Care and Philos

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Over the last decade, personalized medicine has become a buzz word, which covers a broad spectrum of meanings and generates many different opinions. The purpose of this article is to achieve a better understanding of the reasons why personalized medicine gives rise to such conflicting opinions. We show that a major issue of personalized medicine is the gap existing between its claims and its reality. We then present and analyze different possible reasons for this gap. We propose an hypothesis inspired by the Windelband's distinction between nomothetic and idiographic methodology. We argue that the fuzzy situation of personalized medicine results from a mix between idiographic claims and nomothetic methodological procedures. Hence we suggest that the current quandary about personalized medicine cannot be solved without getting involved in a discussion about the complex epistemological and methodological status of medicine. To conclude, we show that the Gadamer's view of medicine as a dialogical process can be fruitfully used and reveals that personalization is not a theoretical task, but a practical one, which takes place within the clinical encounter.

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Inventing Traditions, Raising Expectations. Recent Debates on “Personalized Medicine”

Cited by 4 publications

References 34 publications

Conceptual and terminological confusion around personalised medicine: a coping strategy

Conceptual and terminological confusion around personalised medicine: a coping strategy

Precision Medicine and Complexity

Between hype and hope: What is really at stake with personalized medicine?

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