Collocated Use of Imaging Systems in Coordinated Surgical Practice

Abstract

In surgery, assemblages of imaging systems need to be managed, interfaced, and coordinated by a collocated team. In this paper, I untangle the different forms of imaging system interaction in this highly specialized multi-device environment (MDE). I show how the different forms of imaging systems affect the work practice by creating a need for additional articulation work. This articulation work is coordinated into the surgical practice on the body by either distributing the work across the team or by requiring a momentary pause of the surgical work for the entire team to attend to the articulation work to be done on or with the images. And we see how distributing the work across the team still requires a reintegration of the knowledge gleaned from the new information into the surgery itself. This presents an expansion of our understanding of how collocated teams function in MDEs that consist of purely shared displays.