Modeling
A central commitment and contribution of our work involves modelling. Our work is empirically grounded in the praxis of medical care, and our goal is to represent ethical, political and historical dimensions of medical care that are often missed in technocentric studies. Our approach is critical phenomenological, and we seek to foreground experiences from the margins of discipline and society.
Modeling "Moral Horizons"
"Moral horizons" are models of interactions in medical care that are politically, historically and ethically intertwined. Our ongoing work is focused on recognizing and representing such interactions in the context of "treating" pain. We pay particular attention to the interplay of bodies, senses, histories and technologies (ranging from treatment algorithms to syringes to AI) through which experiences of care unfold.
We use empirical and artistic (including computational) approaches for our work. Empirically, we are committed to qualitative and critical ethnographic approaches. This includes observations of medical praxis, conducting interviews with physicians and therapists, as well as grounding our observations and theories in historical, sociological and anthropological studies of technology and medicine. Through interpretively analyzing and representing experiences of medical care, including physician-patient interactions, as well as their interactions with technologies, we then construct different forms of representations (e.g., cinematic animations, computational models, public installations, etc.) of the intersecting arcs of ethical, historical and technological realms of experience.
Building on research in Sociology, Learning Sciences and Medicine
In her work on pelvic floor surgery and the sociohistory of the adoption of transvaginal mesh, PI Ariel Ducey has considered how the sense of response-ability co-existed with surgeons' adoption of device-procedures that caused harm, often irreparable, to tens of thousands of women globally. Our project directly builds on her scholarship on how ineffable and elusive the moral dimension of medical care can be, especially in the context of an increasingly technocentric profession. You can read more about her research here.
Co-PI Pratim Sengupta's research has been focused on supporting and studying complex, interdisciplinary modelling practices in K-12 classrooms and informal public spaces. Our work builds on Sengupta's critical phenomenological approach in computing and technoscience education, including his scholarship on computational heterogeneity as a necessary challenge to technocentrism, and his collaborative work on public computing which seeks to position publicness at the heart of higher education in computing and STEM disciplines.
Co-PI Martina Ann Kelly is a physician and a researcher of medicine, who is interested in both the ethical and educational dimensions of medical work and preparation. Our project builds on Martina's research on the inarticulable dimensions of medical care, such as touch and non-verbal communication, as well as her scholarship on the ethics of patient consent. Martina's previous work has identified how touch is experienced both as presence and risk in physician-patient interactions, the implications of embodying ethics in medical education, and the ethical dimensions of representational technologies (e.g., medical photography) in medicine.
