MSF’s contributions to the changes in trans-national medicine
Nicolas Dodier
Nicolas Dodier is a sociologist, director of research at the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM) and director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). His previous research were focused on the working world (Les hommes et les machines, 1995), the medical world (L'expertise médicale, 1993; Leçons politiques de l'épidémie de sida, 2003), and the different ways of reparation for collective disasters (with Janine Barbot: Des victimes en procès, 2023 in press). More recently, he has launched a survey on humanitarian medicine.
The emergency and constraints of certain catastrophes force MSF teams to medical and operational audacity. To take new paths or stray away from official protocols is to run the risk of doing things less well, of perhaps doing harm and dilapidating resources. But to lack initiative is to make do with ineffective practices under the pretext of poverty, the ignorance of the affected populations, the respect of international recommendations, economic constraints or political authorities.
What can MSF do faced with these dilemmas? The publication directed by Jean-Hervé Bradol and Claudine Vidal, 'Medical Innovations in Humanitarian Situations. The work of Médecins Sans Frontières' retraces the arduous journey of innovation, focusing on five pathologies. It describes the measures which MSF has used to introduce and disseminate new practices. Nicolas Dodier shares with us his thoughts on MSF's contributions to the changes in transnational medicine.
To cite this content :
Nicolas Dodier, “MSF’s contributions to the changes in trans-national medicine”, 18 février 2010, URL : https://msf-crash.org/en/conferences-debates/msfs-contributions-changes-trans-national-medicine
If you want to criticize or develop this content, you can find us on twitter or directly on our site.
ContributePast events
Conference
Eyal Weizman - Forensic Architecture at work
02/15/2016 - 07:00 PM 09:30 PMEyal Weizman, the founder of « Forensic Architecture » at the Goldsmiths College (University of London) came to present the project as well as a number of his works at a MSF - Crash conference organised at MSF.
Conference
The polio eradication campaign put to test
02/04/2014 - 01:30 PM 07:30 PMThe polio eradication campaign has indeniably and remarkably succeeded in tumbling down the number of polio cases worldwide. But difficulties currently faced by the Programme -pockets of social resistance in several countries, reinfection of some countries, outbreak of epidemics associated with strains of vaccine-derived polio viruses- indeed challenge one of the main assumptions underlying the objective of the eradication itself : the full compliance of an entire population to a public health program.
Conference
Living a Natural Disaster
11/03/2010 - 07:00 PM 09:00 PMPeople wandering through the rubble in Haiti, arms outstretched begging for help amid the floods in Pakistan: the media coverage of disasters invariably features helpless victims, overwhelmed by the disaster, waiting to be helped...
Lena Mucha
Conference
From their point of view
03/10/2009 - 07:00 PM 09:30 PMThe reasons why we are accepted, tolerated or sometimes rejected in the contexts where we work are often obscure. Caroline Abu-Sada and her team of sociology student shed some light on these issues.
Jacob Zocherman
Conference
Grounds for divorce ? MSF and the international criminal court
04/08/2009 - 08:30 PM 10:30 PMIn 1998 MSF decided to support the creation of the International Criminal Court. 10 years later MSF stated that it ‘would not cooperate and would not transmit any information to the ICC'. How can we explain this change of position?