Inclusive Technology Development

While recent advancements in assistive technologies have increased accessibility to medical practice for disabled individuals, they often simultaneously reinforce a medical model of disability that perpetuates stigmatization and exclusion. Katherine Ott (2014) writes that medical inventors and designers “share the goal of creating devices and objects that make the person as ‘whole’ as possible” (p. 127). No matter how innovating a new product may be, the fact that it was founded on the assumption that disability is a deficit that needs to be fixed inherently prevents it from supporting equitable inclusion. Ott argues the solution to this problem begins with including disabled individuals on the development teams that create new equipment and products. The stories of Tim Cordes and Molly Fausone provide examples of inclusive research and development that holds the potential to disentangle assistive technology from the medical model of disability.

Dr. Tim Cordes demonstrates proprietary software that uses sound to describe protien structures in The Capital Times. 

The 2010 story of Tim Cordes from The Capital Times briefly mentions that Cordes, who is blind, contributed to the development of new technology while completing his doctoral work at University of Wisconsin-Madison (Finkelmeyer, 2010). This information is primarily included to emphasize the psychiatrist’s work ethic and tireless determination to overcome barriers related to his visual impairment. Cordes and two colleagues created three-dimensional visualization software, called Tonal Interface to MacroMolecules or TIMMol, that uses varying musical tones to explain atomic coordinates of protein structures. Translating visual into auditory information using this software has been shown to support research conducted by both users with visual impairments and spatial visualization challenges (Cordes et al., 2008).

Medical student Molly Fausone is shown using digital imaging technology to complete a patient examination.

The story of third-year medical student Molly Fausone that appeared in the University of Michigan’s Michigan News in 2018 describes a similar inclusive design process (New medical devices, 2018). Fausone collaborated with two university professors to create new technology to allow her to complete patient examinations with limited mobility. The team designed a device that consists of a long, flexible wire with a camera mounted on the end that relays critical diagnostic information to a mobile device. This allows Fausone to examine a patient’s skin, eyes, ears, nose, throat, and mouth from her power wheelchair.

In a marked departure from earlier reports of technology developed for use by disabled medical professionals, the article explicitly states that the ”goal is for these devices to be used by all physicians, regardless of whether they have a physical limitation or disability” (New medical devices, 2018). This signifies a major shift away from the historical development of technologies intended to “normalize” disabled individuals. Rather, this inclusive design process aims to use disability to identify and address limitations in medical practice broadly. Not only does such technology provide access to medical practice for disabled individuals, but it also holds the potential to improve efficiency and create new opportunities for medicine as a whole.