How do patients experience 3D MR spirometry? 

How does 3D MR spirometry affect the physician-patient relationship?

How does this new imaging technology affect cultural imagination?

V|LF-Spiro3D investigates how the use of the new technology is experienced by patients, medical professionals and the wider public. It is well-known that for the clinical process, patients’ experiences are very important. When a device tests well what it is supposed to test but when it is uncomfortable, awkward or impractical in its use, compliance does not benefit. Also when the objective outcomes of the device do not correspond with patients’ subjective experiences of their illness, this might have an impact on patients’ understanding of their disease, and consequently on their ability to self-manage their disease (trajectory). It is also expected that a new technological device will affect the way physicians proceed. It may indeed affect the processes of diagnosing, informing and of (shared) decision-making. Alongside these clinical issues, V|LF-Spiro3D intends to explore the philosophical question of whether and how the new type of images, produced by 3D MR spirometry, may affect imagination and understanding of the human body.

V|LF-Spiro3D aims at:

• Exploring the perspective of the patient
• Exploring the patient-professional relationship
• Exploring the impact of new type of images, cultural imagination

The social study

For this social study, the research participants’ experiences will be explored through 160 survey responses and 80 interviews at three different field sites, those being Paris, Rotterdam and Aberdeen. The aim of these qualitative research methods is to assess how medical monitoring and imaging affects patients (and their caregivers) and patient-practitioner relationships. In addition, this social study also explores the phenomenological, experiential and cultural implications of the imaging technologies that are worked with, and developed, in the V|LF-Spiro3D consortium through literature review and cultural analysis.