Anette Lykke Hindhede

Medical education is pivotal for high-quality healthcare because well-prepared doctors improve patient outcomes and reduce errors. Yet many junior doctors report feeling unprepared for clinical pra...

Personalized medicine (PM) is reshaping healthcare by introducing new technologies, competencies, and normative tensions. This qualitative study explores how healthcare professionals, educators, and planners involved in a Danish master’s program in PM articulate and negotiate expectations, concerns, and interpretations of artificial intelligence (AI)’s role in future clinical practice. Drawing on 24 interviews, document analysis, and 28 h of classroom observations, we apply Shove’s practice theory to examine how changes in materials (technologies), competences (skills and collaboration), and meanings (professional identity and ethical values) interact in the reconfiguration of healthcare work. We emphasize that these transformations occur through making and breaking links between elements and recursive integration, producing new practice trajectories rather than isolated technological adoption. Findings indicate that PM challenges traditional roles and responsibilities, prompting both uncertainty and innovation. Participants express ambivalence toward algorithmic decision making, citing concerns about transparency, accountability, and the erosion of clinical judgment. Ethical dilemmas emerge around data ownership, informed consent, secondary findings, and the right not to know, highlighting how algorithmic systems increasingly participate in decisions that were previously governed by human professionals. We conceptualize this shift as algorithmic normativity , the process through which algorithms not only support but actively shape normative frameworks in healthcare. The analysis shows how these practice configurations drive normative change and points to the importance of understanding technological transformation as a matter of reconfiguring practice linkages rather than individual adoption.

Aims and Objectives: This study aimed to investigate how supervision models may cultivate or constrain different ways of knowing and learning in primary care. Methodological Design and Justification: The research employed a qualitative methodological design, grounded in Legitimation Code Theory, to gain an in‐depth understanding of the dynamics at play within various supervision models. It aligns with the QRSR guidelines. Ethical Issues and Approval: Ethical considerations were thoroughly addressed, and approval was obtained prior to initiating the study, ensuring participant confidentiality and informed consent. Research Methods, Instruments, and Interventions: The study utilised qualitative interviews as the primary research method, conducting 18 interviews with a diverse range of healthcare professionals, including leaders, nurses, nursing assistants, physiotherapists, and both internal and external supervision consultants. Outcome Measures: The analysis focused on identifying how different supervision models influenced reflective practice and shaped the participants' perceptions regarding the effectiveness and utility of these models. Results: Findings illustrated the complex interplay of cultivated, social, and trained gazes within healthcare settings, highlighting how different forms of legitimation shape what counts as meaningful understanding and reflective practice. Study Limitations: While the study provides valuable insights, it is important to acknowledge limitations related to the heterogeneous nature of the material across the interventions. Conclusions: The concept of gaze not only elucidates the presuppositions underlying different supervision models but also elucidates how the usefulness of different supervision models is legitimated within practice.

In recent decades, global political efforts have increasingly focused on the transformative potential of personalized medicine to prevent disease, improve health outcomes, and lower treatment costs. This has created at pressing demand for healthcare professionals to deepen their understanding and utilizing health data and its application in clinical decision-making. In response, a new master’s program in personalized medicine has been launched across five universities in Denmark. This study, drawing on the sociology of expertise, investigates how educators and master’s students in the program perceive and engage with the knowledge necessary for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into patient treatment and care. Our findings suggest a prevailing belief among educators in the potential of AI and big data to revolutionize healthcare by personalizing treatment options and improving diagnostic processes. Course participants generally acknowledged the ethical responsibility to leverage the vast amounts of data provided by patients to enhance treatment outcomes. However, some feared it might undermine the clinical insight they had gained through years of experience – insights they described as ‘the art of medicine.’ They navigated their agency and autonomy in the human-algorithm collaboration by framing algorithms as supportive additions to human judgment rather than replacements for it. In conclusion, this paper advocates for a more integrated approach that combines big data analysis with practical experience in healthcare.

This article examines how hospital-based professionals establish and negotiate their roles without relying on institutional agendas and logics, representing a reconfiguration of professional boundaries through community-based participatory research. Operating outside traditional clinical settings, we examine through interviews and observations how these professionals interact with elderly residents and researchers in shaping a community-oriented role for health professionals. Using Sida Liu’s concepts of boundary making and boundary blurring, the analysis shows how professional roles are actively enacted through individual reflection and collaborative efforts. Instead of simply reproducing or dissolving familiar roles, boundaries are intentionally reaffirmed, adapted, or co-created in response to the specific context and relational dynamics. The findings enhance boundary work literature by highlighting the micro-social and situational aspects of professional role negotiation. The study also prompts broader questions about how hospital-based professionals can engage in community healthcare practices through flexible, participatory approaches.

Patient-centered care and patient choice are reshaping management practices in the Danish public healthcare sector. Patients are becoming more involved in their treatment and assuming greater control over their healthcare decisions. This transformation redefines relationships among patients, professionals, and the state. It raises important inquiries into how healthcare professionals navigate their new roles and responsibilities within this changing landscape. In this paper, we interviewed ten health professionals to delineate how they handle user involvement in daily clinical practice. Utilizing a sociology of profession framework for thematic analysis, our research revealed the disparities between the ideal and the actual implementation of patient-centered care. It highlighted the challenges healthcare professionals encounter in integrating shared decision-making practices and ensuring patients are adequately informed. We conclude that uncertainties regarding responsibility allocation and the boundaries of healthcare professional involvement often overshadow shared responsibility between healthcare professionals and patients.

This chapter explores the emergence and rapid establishment of a new specialized role in the Danish healthcare system known as ‘social nursing.’ Based on a scoping review, it delves into the multifaceted nature of social nursing, highlighting its critical role in addressing the social determinants of health for vulnerable populations. These determinants encompass various factors in a person's life and environment, such as economic status, education, employment, housing, and social networks, which significantly influence their health. While the specific tasks of social nurses may differ, they generally involve identifying and addressing these social factors that can impact a person's health condition and treatment in hospital settings. Social nurses serve as essential links between patients and the healthcare system, as well as between various healthcare and social service providers. They are responsible for coordinating care, ensuring comprehensive support, and navigating the complexities of the healthcare system. The chapter concludes that the development of social nursing represents a shift in healthcare jurisdiction, with nurses taking on tasks traditionally associated with social workers. However, while the emergence of social nursing has not led to significant jurisdictional conflicts, further development and collaboration with other professions may bring new challenges and opportunities for defining professional boundaries.