Assistive Technology and Medical Practice in the News
Dublin Core
Title
Assistive Technology and Medical Practice in the News
Description
This collection includes images and video clips from news media depictions of assistive technology in medical practice. Items were selected to highlight the arbitrary distinction between assistive technology and medical devices and demonstrate how media depictions of technology in this context reinforce stigmatizing and exclusionary attitudes, values, and beliefs embedded in the medical establishment and American culture at large.
Collection Items
Electrocuted by 11,000 Volts, Now an Amputee...and an MD by Alicia Gallegos (WebMD News, 2022)
This 2022 WebMD Health News article on Dr. BJ Miller, who is a triple amputee, highlights how the news media reinforces a medical model of disability founded on the assumption that the problem of disability exists wtihin the person. The story and…
The inspirational doctor paralyzed from the waist who can still perform surgeries thanks to remarkable stand-up wheelchair (Daily Mail, 2013)
This 2013 Daily Mail report on Dr. Ted Rummel, who is paralyzed, offers an example of the merging of person and technology in media depictions of disabled medical professionals. While acknowledging Rummel's personal determination, the article…
Real-life 'Iron Man': Paralyzed surgeon uses standing wheelchair to perform surgeries (ABC News, 2017)
These video clips, which aired on ABC News in 2017, characterize third-year general surgery resident Dr. Chris McCulloh as a "real-life 'Iron Man'" due to his ability to perform surgeries from his standing wheelchair. By presenting McCulloh as a…
Tim Cordes one of few sightless doctors in U.S. by Todd Finkelmeyer (The Capital Times, 2010)
This feature on Dr. Tim Cordes, who is blind, published in 2010 by Madison, Wisconsin, newspaper The Capital Times, describes how assistive technology enables Cordes to satisfy his productive role as a psychiatrist. By focusing exclusively on…
Health matters: Special stethoscope for hard of hearing nurse by Susanne Brunner (KARK News Little Rock, 2018)
This news report from Little Rock, Arkansas, NBC affiliate KARK which aired in 2018, demonstrates how digital stethoscope technology enables nurse Clarissa Hardman, who is hard of hearing, to efficiently and accurately complete patient physical…
New medical devices help doctors with disabilities (Michigan News, 2018)
This 2018 article and accompanying video clip from Michigan News features third-year University of Michigan medical student Molly Fausone. Fausone, who is paralyzed from the chest down, describes the process of assisting in the development of digital…