Jacob WardJul 5, 2023

I've finally decided to experiment with Mastodon, so here's an #introduction #histodons

I'm a historian of science, technology, and neoliberalism. My first book (coming out Spring 2024) investigates the digitalisation and privatisation of Britain's telecom infrastructure, and I've recently started a new project on the history of futurology in British government.

I grew up and went to university in London, and now I work at Maastricht University, in the History department and STS research programme.

I had a Twitter account but was shocking at actually using it. Twitter always felt a bit too "broadcast" and exposing for me, which I think I reacted to by only posting declarations and announcements (when I posted at all). I'd like to be more active here and I hope there's more space for dialogue and interaction. Thanks for reading!

Show threadKristine WillisJul 7, 2023
@jacobward nice to learn about your work, look forward to hearing more. Iā€™m a systems biologist by training, and my day job now is in cancer metabolism, with a sideline in sociology and history of biomedical science, especially in the US.
Show threadJacob Ward
@kristine_willis your work sounds fascinating! I trained as a doctor at first but left medical school early to do an MSc in #STS. Would love to return to (bio)med in my research at some point, especially curious about the history of digital infrastructures for healthcare and of algorithimic thinking in medicine
Jul 7, 2023 at 2:11pmWeb
Show threadKristine WillisJul 8, 2023
@jacobward thanks! Algorithmic thinking in medicine sounds fascinating. I guess if you consider algorithmic thinking as a series of (if ā€¦ then) statements then you might argue the history is very long, since basically all medicine takes the form (if the patient does/has X, then do Y) šŸ™‚
Show threadJacob WardJul 10, 2023

@kristine_willis Yes, that's a good point. I suppose more specifically I'm interested in when that became routinized and "automated" as opposed to something that was a matter of judgement and interpretation on the part of the medical professional.

During my clinical training, the main pocket reference work, the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine, was full of these decision trees (which it called "algorithms") to follow depending on a patient's signs, symptoms, test results, etc. That was what got me interested in this topic!