Relational Selves and Families in Medicine: Gender Perspectives
Conference Dec 10-12, 2012, Linköping, Sweden
In many cases, there is only one patient in the patient-health care professional encounter. This, however, is not always the case. As some examples, two individuals may seek medical assistance in order to conceive a child together and more individuals may be involved if a sibling donates egg or sperm to a family-member and her/his partner.
Many other examples can be given of encounters and treatments that involve more than one patient and one health care professional. When the patient is a minor child, parent(s) may face difficult treatment decisions as regards medical treatment for their children. If two parents are involved in the decision, they may not always agree on what is the best treatment for their child. And what say does the child have in terms of treatments? As yet another example, cases of sibling organ donation where a sibling donates an organ to a brother or sister highlight how intimately family members can become involved in each other’s medical treatment. Finally, the topic of families in medicine can be pertinent in relation to aging and health care needs in later life, where relatives can become thoroughly involved in this care and where gender roles can feed into this care work.
Still, comparably little attention has been given to the role of families in medical encounters, treatment decisions, care work and illness experiences.
The aim of the conference
Relational selves and families in medicine: Gender Perspectives is to bring together scholars who examine the role of extended families, parents, siblings, children, and close friends in medicine, and this with a gender perspective. We welcome contributions from scholars with interdisciplinary and various disciplinary backgrounds within the social sciences and the humanities. We specially invite contributions that focus on (but are not limited to):
Assisted reproductive technologies, surrogacy, egg-, sperm- and embryo donation, adoption and other ways of becoming parents
The welfare of the child in medicine
Conceptions and norms of parenthood in medicine
Corrective measures: what is ‘corrected’ and why, in children’s and teen-agers’ bodies?
Ageing and care in later life
- Relational conceptions of selves and relational autonomy
- The interplay between self and others, and how this can inform the illness experience as well as experiences of hope, strength and health.
Registration
Deadline for registration is October 15, 2012. Conference fee (100 Euro) covers one conference abstract booklet, coffee in pauses and one conference dinner. Register by sending an e-mail to conference.genderandhealth@gmail.com in which you state name, affiliation, allergies/food preferences. The conference fee is to be submitted using one of the alternatives below.
Participants with a Swedish bank account: Please use the account Bankgiro 743-8609 (Danske Bank). The reference nr: 8831030001, your name and affiliation must be included in the payment.
Participants with an international bank account: Please use the account: 8901-1 924 339 671-1. Address: Swedbank, S-105 34 Stockholm, Sweden, BIC: SWEDSESS, IBAN: SE34 8000 0890 1192 4339 6711. Please note that the reference nr: 8831030001, your name and affiliation must be included in the payment.
Any questions and enquiries can be sent to conference: genderandhealth@gmail.com
