Knowledge and technology: miths in an intensive care center

Abstract

This article is a partial result of an ethnographic study that had the purpose to describe the culture of intensive care unit nurses. Considering that the ICU is a subculture of the hospital, and that the professionals share symbols and meanings that were developed through social interactions in the context of Intensive Care, the symbolic interactionism and the ethnographic description were used as a theoretical and methodological basis for this study. The participant observation, the ethnographic interview and the documented analysis were used to understand the process of internalization of the symbolic universe of the ICU. Among the described cultural elements, authors identified knowledge and technology myths. They conclude that knowledge and technology myths were socially established as a survival strategy in the daily routine of intensive care full of risks and uncertainty.