Doctoral Dissertation Research: "Healing Hearts and Training Minds" in El Salvador: Pediatric Heart Surgery Missions and Globally Circulating Biotechnologies

长期以来，医疗特派团一直致力于满足世界上最脆弱人群的卫生需求。通常情况下，志愿者小组短期前往资源贫乏的国家治疗常见病、促进健康和满足其他初级保健需求。然而，最近医疗人道主义援助的一个趋势是强调技术先进、最先进的护理从富国向穷国的转移。小儿心脏手术任务体现了这一趋势，从而定义了生物技术和相关知识在全球流通的新背景。本研究调查了在美国外科医生访问萨尔瓦多修复受损儿童心脏的情况下，这种新兴形式的技术转移的社会和医学后果。该研究调查了在资源贫乏的环境中如何进行心脏手术；护理提供者和接受者如何想象和体验人道主义医学；以及治疗病人、培训医生和引进新物资的长期后果。该研究人员将在两个国家（美国和萨尔瓦多）进行为期14个月的人种学实地研究，以检查萨尔瓦多儿童心脏手术任务的实践、意义和长期影响。通过关注儿科心脏手术任务的实践、意义和基础影响，本研究扩展或完善了与身体和生物技术相关的理论：即，身体不是本身的东西，而是通过实践（即手术干预）制造和破坏的物体，生物技术是在当地环境中想象、接受和重新加工的全球流动。此外，这项研究将有助于更广泛地了解人道主义科学援助。该项目将通过深入了解全球背景下知识转移的政治和文化影响而产生广泛影响。虽然该项目侧重于一项特定的技术，但研究结果将为更广泛的技术转移的社会科学研究提供见解。研究成果将在学术会议和学术出版物以及面向卫生保健专业人员的演讲和出版物上分享。

Medical missions have long addressed the health needs of the world's most vulnerable populations. Typically, volunteer teams travel to resource-poor countries on a short-term basis to treat common ailments, promote health and attend to other primary care needs. A recent trend in medical humanitarian aid, however, emphasizes the movement of technologically-sophisticated, state-of-the-art care from rich to poor countries. Pediatric heart surgery missions exemplify this trend, thus defining a new context where biotechnologies and associated knowledge circulate globally. This study investigates the social and medical ramifications of this emergent form of technology transfer in contexts where surgeons from the United States make visits to El Salvador to repair damaged pediatric hearts. The research examines how heart surgeries are performed in resource-poor settings; how humanitarian medicine is imagined and experienced by providers and recipients of care; and the long-term consequences of efforts to treat patients, train physicians and bring in new supplies. The researcher will conduct 14 months of ethnographic field research in two countries (the United States and El Salvador) to examine the practices, significance and long-term effects of pediatric heart surgery missions in El Salvador. By focusing on the practices, meanings and grounded impacts of pediatric heart surgery missions, this study expands or refines theories related to bodies and biotechnologies: namely, bodies as not things-in-themselves but objects made and unmade through practice (namely, surgical intervention) and biotechnologies as global flows that are imagined, embraced and reworked in local settings. In addition, this study will contribute to knowledge on humanitarian science aid more generally.The project will have broad impact by providing insight into the political and cultural effects of knowledge transfer in global settings. Although this project focuses on one particular technology, research findings will offer insight into the social science study of technology transfer more broadly. Research findings will be shared at academic conferences and academic publications as well as through presentations and publications geared toward health care professionals.