Surveillance Stories: Gestational Diabetes and the Intersection of Biomedicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Asian Immigrant Women in Edmonton

The focus of this research is on the conceptualizations of gestational diabetes among three stakeholder groups in Edmonton: Asian immigrant women living with the condition; biomedical clinicians who assist them; and a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. The locus of this study was a diabetes outpatient clinic that represented the contact zone for the explanatory models of this condition between the expert groups. Qualitative analysis of seven interviews demonstrates that the conceptualization of any health issue is a complex process that has implications for the delivery of health care in a culturally diverse community. Within the framework of understanding gestational diabetes as socially experienced, one of the most significant findings of this research is that the major symptom of diabetes as experienced by the women who lived with the condition was the auto-surveillance and modification of behaviour required of them by clinical staff in order to manage their condition.