Understanding the Social Implications of ICT in Medicine and Health: the Role of Professional Societies

In past times, engineers and other ICT professionals could normally function exclusively within an environment of purely technical dimensions. This sphere could be easily delineated from those involving policy, political or social questions. Consequently, these professions could well be characterized as generally isolated from mainstream society, engendering a condition that Zussman [1985] has described as a “technical rationality that is the engineer’s stock-in-trade requir[ing] the calculation of means for the realization of given ends. But it requir[ing] no broad insight into those ends or their consequences”. This condition has often led to a perceived technical mindset that according to Florman [1976], draws upon “the comfort that comes with the total absorption in a mechanical environment. The world becomes reduced and manageable, controlled and unchaotic”.