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

医疗特派团长期以来一直致力于满足世界上最弱势群体的健康需求。通常，志愿人员小组短期前往资源贫乏的国家，治疗常见疾病，促进健康，满足其他初级保健需求。然而，医疗人道主义援助的最近趋势强调技术先进的最先进护理从富国向穷国转移。儿科心脏手术任务顺应了这一趋势，从而定义了生物技术和相关知识在全球传播的新背景。本研究调查了这种新兴形式的技术转让的社会和医疗后果的背景下，来自美国的外科医生访问萨尔瓦多萨尔瓦多修复受损的小儿心脏。该研究探讨了如何在资源贫乏的环境中进行心脏手术;人道主义医学是如何想象和体验的护理提供者和接受者;以及努力治疗患者，培训医生和带来新的供应品的长期后果。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，以研究萨尔瓦多儿科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，意义和接地影响，本研究扩展或完善与身体和生物技术相关的理论：即，身体本身不是事物，而是通过实践（即手术干预）和生物技术作为全球流动的对象，在当地环境中被想象，拥抱和改造。此外，本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。虽然本项目侧重于一项特定的技术，但研究结果将为更广泛地研究技术转让的社会科学提供见解。研究结果将在学术会议和学术出版物上分享，并通过面向医疗保健专业人员的演讲和出版物进行分享。

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.