Leveraging Ambiguity in the Clinic: Mild TBI and Veterans' Forgetting

US military veterans who have histories of mild traumatic brain injury (mild TBI) are evaluated and treated in specialized clinics in the Veterans Health Administration (VA). In this ethnography of one such clinic, I explore the problem of veterans' forgetting. I focus on doctors' strategy...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medical anthropology 2021-02, Vol.40 (2), p.141-154
Main Author: Zogas, Anna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambiguity
Anthropology, Medical
attention
Attention - physiology
Brain Concussion - ethnology
Brain Concussion - psychology
Brain Concussion - therapy
clinical medicine
Ethnography
Head injuries
Humans
Memory
Memory Disorders - ethnology
Memory Disorders - psychology
mild traumatic brain injury
Military hospitals
Military Medicine
military veterans
Pain
Post traumatic stress disorder
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - ethnology
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - psychology
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - therapy
therapy
Traumatic brain injury
United States
Veterans
Veterans - psychology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:US military veterans who have histories of mild traumatic brain injury (mild TBI) are evaluated and treated in specialized clinics in the Veterans Health Administration (VA). In this ethnography of one such clinic, I explore the problem of veterans' forgetting. I focus on doctors' strategy of actively drawing attention to the ambiguous causes of forgetting to reposition past head injuries as among many possible explanations, including posttraumatic stress, pain, and everyday distractions. This leveraging of ambiguity as therapy highlights both the utility of and tensions inherent in the expansive clinical gaze of therapeutic medicine.
ISSN:0145-9740
1545-5882
DOI:10.1080/01459740.2020.1798422