Our strength of Zetka's work is that he enhances his historical analysis of the intraoccupational competition within medicine with a workplace focus. This allows him to demonstrate the importance of location in the focus. This allows him to demonstrate the importance of location in the occupational division of labor; as a downstream occupation, surgeons were dependent on referrals to procure patients on which to work.... A simultaneous workplace and historical occupational study is a daunting undertaking, and Zetka does a laudable job of combining the two. Another strength of the work is that it lies at an interesting intersection of occupations, work, and technology.... Scholars interested in the diffusion of innovation would find much to like in his analysis of the cultural and structural factors involved in the adoption of the surgical scope.
Beth A. Bechky, University of California, Davis
American Journal of Sociology
Surgeons and the Scope is the fifth volume in a Cornell University series on technology and work. The author is a sociologist who used interviews of practitioners, observations of videoscopic procedures, and archival materials to describe the interplay of forces in medicine and surgery and other factors that led to surgeons' development and control of laparoscopic surgery. The book is written as a sociological case study of the impact of technology on work and is a solid contribution to the sociology of occupations and professions. Moreover, those other than sociologists should also find it an interesting and insightful account of the development and impact of 'scope' technology.
Journal of the American Medical Association