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Project Summary:

This project will develop a descriptive account of the evolution of sleep medicine in Canada through data gathered from individual informants, archival sources, and published biomedical research. It also aims to examine the effects that Canada’s universal system of health care provision may have had on innovations in sleep
medicine.

Project Description:

Sleep complaints are ancient, but it was only during the 1970s and ‘80s that sleep began to emerge as a sub-specialty of medical practice. Canadian clinicians were on the cutting edge of this development, but this story remains unwritten. Sleep medicine evolved in tandem with the divergence of Canadian and American systems of state medical provision, so this project asks what effects Canada’s evolving system of universal health care had on sleep medicine since 1970. Personal interviews with Canadian sleep medicine researchers and practitioners will be combined with an historical analysis of published biomedical literature to help reveal the ways in which Canada’s universal health care system impacted technological innovation, patient care, and professional status and structure in an emerging field of medical expertise.

Project Type:
Funded

Project Role:
Principal Investigator

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Collaborator:
Hana Holubec

Collaborator Institution:
Graduate Program in Science & Technology Studies

Collaborator Role:
Research Assistant