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From Decision To Incision: Ideologies Of Gender In Surgical Cancer Care, Piper Sledge
From Decision To Incision: Ideologies Of Gender In Surgical Cancer Care, Piper Sledge
Sociology Faculty Research and Scholarship
In this paper, I draw on the narratives of 57 individuals whose gender identities and decisions about their bodies trouble the medical protocols for breast and gynecological cancer care. I focus here on the decision-making process for three groups of elective surgeries: hysterectomy, prophylactic bilateral and contralateral mastectomy, and breast reconstruction. These elective surgeries illustrate places in medical interactions where patients and providers rely on frames of gender to determine whether a given surgery is an appropriate option for cancer prevention or care. These cases also explain how patient experiences of medical interactions are shaped by and thus reproduce ideologies …