Oncoguides-ontoguides: protocols, panoramas and prehension in cancer treatment

Abstract

The protocols and guides have been studied extensively by the social sciences, especially in the biomedical field. They have been characterized as sets of rules that require contextual adaptation, collecting heterogeneity of actors, times and spaces. In this article we collect two questions that, however, have not been treated in literature. The first rests on the organization of content of guides-protocols and their effects. The second, on the relationship established between them and the health professionals. Based on the analysis of medical protocols-guides developed for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, we collect how these are organized in what Bruno Latour termed as panoramas. This implies a special relationship between professionals and guides-protocols, in which the seconds take the first, serving as a source of characterization of the medical phenomena. We describe this relationship as prehension, based on a neologism coined by Alfred Whitehead.