PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Harriet Palfreyman AU - Roger L Kneebone TI - Blind alleys and dead ends: researching innovation in late 20th century surgery AID - 10.1136/medhum-2016-011176 DP - 2018 Sep 01 TA - Medical Humanities PG - 165--171 VI - 44 IP - 3 4099 - http://mh.bmj.com/content/44/3/165.short 4100 - http://mh.bmj.com/content/44/3/165.full SO - J Med Humanit2018 Sep 01; 44 AB - This article examines the fortunes of one particular surgical innovation in the treatment of gallstones in the late 20th century; the percutaneous cholecystolithotomy (PCCL). This was an experimental procedure which was trialled and developed in the early days of minimally invasive surgery and one which fairly rapidly fell out of favour. Using diverse research methods from textual analysis to oral history to re-enactment, the authors explore the rise and fall of the PCCL demonstrating that such apparent failures are as crucial a part of innovation histories as the triumphs and have much light to shed on the development of surgery more generally.