ArticleSociology of health & illness2026
Future-Making From Afar: Digital Twins in Medicine.
Article in Sociology of health & illness, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Digital twins in medicine are packaged as inevitable, disruptive technologies that will revolutionise healthcare, yet their integration into clinical practice remains slow. In this article, we extend current research on digital twins by shifting attention to the actors behind the technology and their visions. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork, we identify from where and how the In Silico medicine community envisions the future of medicine and trace embedded ideas and logics. Our analysis reveals a friction between the narrowing of visions of medicine, the human body and clinicians and the technical features of digital twins, which are intended to open futures and possibilities through virtual interventions. We show how digital twins are developed at a distance from the very practices they seek to revolutionise and how the field attempts to navigate this distance through conversion and training. As with other digital health technologies, the burden of adjustment is placed on clinicians. By attending to how distance between modellers and clinical settings plays out in practice, we show how this "future-making from afar" constrains but also enables specific modes of engagement. It offers a starting point for demystifying digital twins in medicine and reflects on the kinds of futures the field promotes.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.