Janett, Mirjam Lynn (22 January 2021). Children, their Families and the Management of ‘Intersex’ Bodies in Swiss Pediatric Medicine 1945–1970 (Unpublished). In: American Association for the History of Medicine / Panel 13 The Medical Management of Bodies: Intersex, Inmates, and Aids to Hearing. Webinar. 22. Januar 2021.
It’s been an ongoing concern of the history of medicine to give voice to patients rather than to see them as passive recipients of clinical medicine. This paper aims to analyze the clinical decision in long-term treatments of «intersexual» children at the Zurich University-Children’s Hospital between 1945 and 1970. The field of medical options was vast and rapidly changing in the emergent era of management of «Intersexuality»: pediatric endocrinology and pediatric surgery in Zurich developed around new pharmaceutical options and introduced procedures to diagnose, manage and sometimes treat children.
We seek to understand how crucial decisions were. The historiography suggests that this was a “Golden Age” of medicine – where new options put in the hand of the doctor allowed the physician to take decisions on behalf of the patient. The close to 200 cases for which we have case-files reveal that in our case, the situation was more complex. Yes, cases exist, for which the medical team took decisions, sometimes not even keeping the families fully informed. But there are other cases in which rounds of negotiations between different medical expertise occurred. Families were clearly involved in the clinical decision-making process as well. We ask: What role did families have in the management of intersex bodies in Zurich? How, in the era of paternalistic medicine, did physicians seek the voice of the families? Under what conditions could families reject or sometimes influence medical advice?
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Speech) |
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Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of History 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of History > Swiss History 06 Faculty of Humanities > Other Institutions > Teaching Staff, Faculty of Humanities 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of History > Modern and Contemporary History |
UniBE Contributor: |
Janett, Mirjam Lynn |
Subjects: |
900 History |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Mirjam Lynn Janett |
Date Deposited: |
21 Mar 2022 10:43 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 16:13 |
Related URLs: |
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URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/166782 |
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