Various types of description of medical technology development are compared, & a new model is proposed. The sequential model is used most frequently to analyze the different steps technology passes through from its initial conceptualization to its adoption by medicine. Less often, analysts explain medical technology development by identifying the streams of activity & ideas giving rise to specific innovations. These alternative explanations are combined to form an interactive model of the development of medical technology. According to the interactive model, analysis begins by identifying communities producing a medical technology & locating them & their interrelationships within a political & economic context; it then shows how they produced it. The sequential model is contrasted with the interactive model on the basis of a case study of the development of the drug DES (diethylstilbestrol), synthesized in 1938 & approved for marketing in 1941 to treat problems associated with estrogen dysfunction. 86 References. AA