Cold, hard steel

• Main Author: Arnold-Forster, Agnes (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Manchester Manchester University Press 2023
• Subjects: Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000; History of medicine; Social & cultural history; Surgery; professional identity; surgery; National Health Service; cultural representations; labour; emotions; sociability; gender; race; working conditions
• Online Access: OAPEN Library: download the publication; OAPEN Library: description of the publication

Brilliant, volatile, and invariably male, the surgeon stereotype is a widespread and instantly recognisable part of Western culture. Setting out to anatomise this stereotype, Cold, Hard Steel offers an exciting new history of modern and contemporary British surgery. The book draws on archival materials and original interviews with surgeons, analysing them alongside a range of fictional depictions, from the Doctor in the House novels to Mills & Boon romances and the pioneering soap opera Emergency Ward 10. Presenting a unique social, cultural, and emotional history, it sheds light on the development and maintenance of the surgical stereotype and explains why it has proved so enduring. At the same time, the book explores the more candid and compassionate image of the surgeon that has begun to emerge in recent years, revealing how a series of high-profile memoirs both challenge the surgical stereotype and simultaneously confirm it.