EV’s recently graduated PhD student Mirko Pasquini has been awarded the annual Westinska prize for outstanding PhD dissertation in philosophy/history by the Royal Society of Humanists in Uppsala (Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala) for his doctoral thesis, titled The Negotiation of Urgency: Economies of Attention in an Italian Emergency Room.
Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork (2017-2018), the thesis is a detailed documentation of how urgency in an Emergency Room is decided by much more than medical exigencies. In fact, urgency is a process. Urgency arises out of often-conflicting negotiations between health care professionals, patients and their family and friends, and the larger context of societal priorities and values.
The thesis discusses how multiple vulnerabilities intersect in a hospital Emergency Room, in ways that frequently do not go according to anyone’s plan. The clashes that occur between medical resources, medical expertise, and patients’ desires or demands generate insights into how care actually is managed in a society that currently is witnessing the ongoing dissolution of its National Healthcare System.
The Westinska Prize consists of the honor of presenting the thesis at the Royal Society’s annual dinner and awards ceremony in early 2022, and a sum of 40,000 SEK.
We offer our warmest congratulations to Mirko on this impressive achievement!
