[bksvol-discuss] Fwd: Fw: Blind Doctor opens shop in Portland.OT: FYI
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:28:16 -0800 (PST)
I thought you might be interested not just in the
person but in the technology that is helping her, so I
thought this worthwhile to forward.
Cindy
--- Louise <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: "Louise" <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Louise Gourdoux" <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Fw: Blind Doctor opens shop in Portland.
> Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 14:08:17 -0600
>
>
>
> PORTLAND, OREGON - In a few months, the newest
> doctor - and one of the
> first
> doctors of her kind in the nation - will hang her
> shingle in the Portland,
> Oregon area. Chris L. Cooke will become one of the
> first totally blind
> doctors in the US with a specialty in naturopathic
> medicine.
>
> The new Dr. Cooke, blind since birth, will carry
> the usual medical
> instruments in her black bag, including a blood
> pressure cuff, a
> thermometer, and a Pocket
> PC crammed with medical references - a tool most
> modern doctors rely on to
> help with diagnosis, prescribing the right
> medicine, and ordering and
> interpreting
> lab work. The difference is her tools of the trade
> will talk. In fact, in
> large part, she credits her ability to be a good
> doctor to a
> PAC Mate
> T accessible Pocket PC for the blind and two
> Oregon men who made medical
> reference software accessible to the visually
> impaired, using the PAC
> Mate.
>
> The PAC Mate is the first and only accessible
> Pocket PC that is founded on
> mainstream technology. As such, it does more than
> talk; it can run many
> programs
> developed for off-the-shelf Pocket PCs - including
> medical software. The
> PAC
> Mate also incorporates
> JAWS for Windows
> �, leading screen reading software that can
easily
> be adapted with scripts
> to make those programs accessible for blind users.
>
> Cooke, who at 40 is completing her last months'
> studies at the National
> College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland,
> chose naturopathy as her
> specialty
> because, "Naturopathy combines the prescription of
> (standard manufactured)
> drugs with natural remedies and emphasizes general
> diagnosis, the use of
> natural
> therapeutics and traditional medicine, and we work
> with diet, nutrition,
> life style, and botanical medicine," she said.
> "Ultimately, naturopathy is
> about
> treating the whole body and finding the cause of
> disease and not just
> symptoms."
>
> Naturopathic specialists are licensed in 15 states
> and all Canadian
> provinces. "We study the first two years the same
> as any MD studies -
> pharmacology and
> all the basic sciences," she said. "In the last
> two years, we do thousands
> of hours of clinical work, and study nutrition,
> natural therapeutics,
> homeopathy,
> and botanical medicine. That's where it is
> important to have (portable)
> access to medical research and current
> information. Medical knowledge
> changes weekly.
> It wouldn't be practical to scan all this
> information and print it. It
> would
> be too unwieldy to have to look through all those
> printed resources and
> keep
> them updated, even with sighted assistance."
>
> "In my third year of medical studies last year, I
> realized that all the
> comprehensive medical reference software out there
> was moving toward PDAs
> (Personal
> Digital Assistants, also called Pocket PCs) or the
> Internet," she said.
> "You
> don't always have an Internet connection, so I
> decided a PDA would be best
> for me."
>
> Cooke was interested in
> Epocrates Essentials
> T, an all-in-one mobile guide to drugs, diseases,
> and diagnostics. "I
> looked
> into what could possibly run this kind of program
> for me (and be
> accessible).
> Only the PAC Mate could, so I contacted the Oregon
> Commission for the
> Blind
> and requested the purchase of a PAC Mate."
>
> She chose the BX 440 model which comes with a
> braille display and
> Perkins-style keyboard, often used by the blind in
> place of the
> traditional
> QWERTY typewriter
> layout keyboard. The PAC Mate, as with any
> mainstream Pocket PC or PDA,
> allows her to take notes, write and receive
> e-mail, surf the Web with an
> Internet
> connection, use a calendar, calculator, and other
> standard PDA functions -
> all made accessible for the blind.
>
> "I really enjoy my PAC Mate," said Cooke. "I take
> all my chart notes on it
> and print them out on a portable printer that
> works with it. I like the
> flexibility
> of having the traditional PDA applications running
> on my PAC Mate."
>
> She still had one more obstacle in her way. The
> professional medical
> software written for PDAs was not accessible to
> the blind.
>
> "I knew the PAC Mate would run the (Epocrates)
> software, but it would need
> to be scripted to be accessible to me."' That's
> where Michael Hooks, a
> legally
> blind former assistive technology specialist at
> the Washington State
> School
> for the Blind, stepped in. Along with his
> associate, Chris Meredith who is
> totally blind, Hooks owns and operates
> Next Level Assistive Technology,
> a Vancouver, Washington-based business that serves
> the greater Northwest.
> The company consults with universities, government
> agencies, and others on
> assistive
> technology and also sells accessible technology
> products.
>
> Scripting is the process of writing a series of
> statements that tells JAWS
> how to navigate or what to read under different
> conditions. With the
> blessing
> of Epocrates, Inc., Hooks and Meredith began
> writing a script for the PAC
> Mate that would make the software accessible.
>
> "I've been writing scripts for JAWS since 1996,
> basically since its
> inception," Hooks said. "I have a lot of
> experience, but this was the
> first
> time I had
> written a script for the PAC Mate. A week or so
> later, Chris (Meredith)
> and
> I had it scripted, ready to go, and functional.
> The PAC Mate is truly the
> most
> powerful PDA for the blind on the market today.
> Most (Pocket PC software)
> can be installed and will work right out of the
> box. Because The PAC Mate
> uses
> JAWS, we can easily script programs to be fully
> functional. Competing
> products don't have that kind of flexibility."
>
> "I was amazed at how quickly they had Epocrates
> scripted for my PAC Mate,"
> Cooke said. "I also enjoyed being part of the
> process, where (Hooks and
> Meredith)
> were not familiar with something medical, I could
> give them suggestions
> about how it worked best with us. It worked out
> really well."
>
> Cooke practices 12 hours a week in her school's
> teaching clinics and a
> community clinic. With Epocrates made accessible,
> "Now I have access at my
> fingertips
> to diagnosis tools, signs and symptoms of
> diseases, and causes and
> treatments. I also have a lab tool. If I want to
> order a lab, I know how
> much it's going
> to cost. I can interpret the lab work. Within one
> tool, I also have an
> infectious disease component, so, let's say, if
> someone comes in with
> Strep
> throat,
> I can look it up and see what drugs are usually
> used to treat it." She
> also
> is using Pocket Excel on the PAC Mate to set up a
> 450-item spreadsheet of
> medicinal
> product ingredients, prices, and pertinent
> information she needs when
> seeing
> patients.
>
> Hooks and Meredith have gone on to write scripts
> that make two additional
> medical reference guides for Pocket PCs accessible
> on the PAC Mate. One
> program
> is a reference manual for the chart codes for
> diseases. The other is a
> series of internal medicine manuals.
>
> "I definitely get great benefit from my PAC Mate
> with all of these
> programs," Cooke said. "I can look up things
> during my clinic shifts,
> things that all
> doctors are expected to look up like drugs and the
> interactions they might
> have and what herbs interact with prescription
> drugs. I can also look up
> side
> effects of drugs patients are on now. If I'm
> diagnosing a potential
> disease,
> I have the explanations there of differential
> diagnoses, and I can present
> them for a case. Mostly, it's just a great tool to
> have for all of these
> things."
>
> With her accessible tools, Cooke said, she can
> practice medicine on a
> level
> playing field with her sighted colleagues. "The
> only thing I need help
> with
> is a student or doctor to assist me with things,
> like if a person needs me
> to look at a rash or needs me to look into an
> ear." In fact, other doctors
> have
> asked Chris to use her PAC Mate to help them
> rapidly develop treatment
> plans.
>
> As for her patients' reaction to her blindness and
> her unique accessible
> medical tools, Cooke says, "Occasionally, a
> patient is taken aback for a
> few
> minutes,
> but because I talk and really listen to them, they
> really enjoy working
> with
> me. They are always fascinated by the PAC Mate and
> what it is. They are
> fascinated
> by the braille display particularly."
>
> Chris expects to set up her practice in Portland,
> with a second office in
> nearby Newberg.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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>
>
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