Marlot Kuiper

38 Connective Routines Intermezzo: The news media It is a rainy November day, early in the morning. As I have scheduled exploratory conversations in the operating theatre, I woke up early to prepare breakfast. When I crash at my couch with a cup of yoghurt and sugary granola, I put on the early news. This morning, the news opens with an item about incidents in hospitals, or “major incidents” to use the exact framing. The news that is brought to us is that, although making mistakes is an “occupational hazard”, the incidents that occur in hospitals in the Netherlands are not reported but kept silent. As a result, there is no proper evaluation of practices so that professionals cannot learn from the mistakes made. The news item closes with the announcement that later that day, more details will be provided in a documentary by Zembla. 6 Later that night, overly tired after all new impressions, I crash on my couch again to watch the Zembla documentary. Although the news is brought about as a general fact; “hospitals do not report incidents” the specific focus is on one of the academic hospitals in the Netherlands. More specific, there are stories about one specific department where there is a “culture of fear”. The head of the department is cropped out as “tyrant”. These claims are all based on ‘independent research’ conducted by journalists, though it remains largely unknown how this research was conducted. By now, we arrived at “Hospital Calamities Part IV” (Zembla, n.d.). A cycle of media events has occurred, in which each new episode of the documentary seems to result in many additional news items and newspaper headings. Because of this severe media attention for safety risks in hospitals in general, that was already at stake but intensified over the course of my research, I feel I should say a few words about my research and how it should be read. First of all, as an academic researcher, my aim is to enhance knowledge. With this dissertation, I aim to enhance our understanding of organisational processes, by tracing how actors in interaction – also with artefacts – create and modify their ways of working. An analysis of how surgical teams work with a Surgical Safety 6 Zembla is self-entitled as ‘independent journalistic section’ that investigates and monitors the ways of acting of powerful actors in society. These actors might be governments, organizations, or individuals.