This paper originated from a survey conducted among the workers in the surgical center of Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil. It analyzed the ways in which the nursing team worked and their relationships with patients and with other healthcare professionals. Foucault's thinking was used, thus emphasizing the links between knowledge and power plays, as well as the effects of truth at work, sustained by these workers' standpoint. The strategy of photography was used from the perspective of intervention research. The surgical center was portrayed as a space for keeping an eye open, surveillance and control. Knowledge is determined from the visibility of bodies, which could be those of patients or workers, and this knowledge is legitimized when it emanates from the brightness of the surgical focus. Studies with photographs allow different viewpoints and create spaces for debates.
Surgical center; Work; Power; Intervention research; Photography
