Positioning innovation and governance for 3D printing in clinical care: an Australian case

Abstract

Aim: To position medical 3D printing practices, risk and governance as more complex than mere manufacturing so to consider the contextual network-enabled dilemmas from remediating and remanufacturing the body in professional clinical and pedagogical practice; to suggest the current regulatory logics of risk and innovation do not sufficiently acknowledge shifts to network-enabled practitioner collaborations, exemplified here via ‘chilling effects’ of closed intellectual property regimes. Methods & framework: Anonymous practitioner workshop (n:12), socio-legal critique. Results: Communicated need to acknowledge practices of medical 3D printing under socio-legal constraints. Conclusion: Consider 3D printing as communication models to sustain medical research-practice in a digital–physical age, including consideration of novel governance mechanisms such as practitioner licensing and building a medical commons with network-friendly intellectual property regime.