Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

The Europe Horizon-funded Intelligent Robotic Endoscopes (IRE for Improved Healthcare Services) develops robots for colonoscopies. A procedure with vast variety of quality among specialized MDs. In collaborating on this project, new, more and different precision is devel-oped and needed to succeed.

Paper long abstract

The Europe Horizon-funded project Intelligent Robotic Endoscopes (IRE for Improved Healthcare Services) aims at developing robots for colonoscopies.

This has been deemed an appropriate target for colonoscopy, given the wide variety in quality among specialized MDs. The primary way of assessing the quality of an endoscopist is the Adenoma detection rate (ADR), and variation in coloscopy withdrawal speed and technique has been shown to influence the ADRs. The overall idea in the research project is that a robot will be able to have an overall better technique and optimal speed for the discovery of polyps compared to the median of endoscopist.

IRE is a collaboration across borders and professions, as several kinds of engineers, data scientists, medical professionals, and anthropologists are developing components and infrastructure to further the final product of a robot for colonoscopies.

Through document analysis as practice, ethnographic fieldwork, and interviews, I have collaborated in and explored how precision demands precision. Both in communication across fields and borders, but also in the knowledge production, as new knowledge is needed when a robot is taught something previously practiced by humans, and robots are excluded from learning as doctors do (on humans).

In collaborating on this project, new, more, and different precision is developed and needed to succeed. As robots need to learn to navigate the colon with precision and engineers and data scientist learns that the pictures of colons in medical books are utopic illustrations and the reality is filled with variety and imprecise shapes.