Joy Chen and Nkili Cooper reflect on a seminar held at Rice University’s Medical Humanities Research Institute on the topic of medical technologies and healthcare inequities.
Healthcare organisations have an uneven history of acceptance of new technologies. In the United States, regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) often slow the adoption of new technologies by many years, but the rapid embrace of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has marked a departure from the typically cautionary stance. AI technology was swiftly introduced in exam rooms and patient portals–online systems that allow patients to access their medical records, communicate with doctors, request prescriptions, and manage appointments. There exists, however, huge hesitancy from patients, physicians, and researchers, who are concerned about the associated ethical and privacy dilemmas. After all, the history of medicine is marked by troubling episodes of injustice from researchers’ refusal to give due credit to patients’ contributions to medical discoveries, from the case of Henrietta Lacks to more recent findings regarding the efficacy of pulse oximeters in measuring oxygen levels in black and brown patients.
Carefully considered approaches to the design and deployment of AI and other new technologies in healthcare are no longer matters of speculation and theory, but urgent, real-world necessities that affect patients’ wellbeing and their sense of dignity. What happens to patient privacy when sensitive health data is collected and analyzed by opaque third-party systems? Who bears responsibility when an AI system makes an error in a diagnosis or suggests a flawed treatment plan? As automated decision-making becomes more embedded in clinical practice, how do we maintain trust between patients and providers? And if technological innovation continues to outpace ethical and regulatory frameworks, how can we ensure these tools serve the public good rather than deepen existing inequalities?
Such questions demand more than technical solutions. They call for spaces of reflection and collaboration across disciplines. Responding to this need, on March 6, 2025, Rice University’s Medical Humanities Research Institute (MHRI) hosted a symposium exploring the intersections of medical technologies, healthcare inequities, and health data. This event was part of the Sawyer Seminar on “Reimagining Technologies of Care: Racial Health Equity and Data Justice,” sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The all-day symposium brought together scholars, healthcare practitioners, patient advocates, and journalists from across the U.S. The symposium’s four panels featured humanities perspectives on artificial intelligence, technology, and health equity, with a poster session on these topics presented by Rice students.
Panel 1: Humanities perspectives on AI and patient care
The symposium opened with three presentations discussing what AI can offer in terms of patient care. Liz Salmi, patient advocate, highlighted how OpenNotes, an initiative promoting patients’ access to their medical information, has used AI to transform healthcare through transparent communication between clinicians, patients, and care partners. Reflecting on her own experience as a brain cancer patient, Salmi shared how AI provides easier access to her medical information, improving engagement with her healthcare team.
Craig Watkins, professor at the University of Texas, talked about how AI can help provide efficient healthcare when people cannot easily access in-person services. He shared several examples of AI projects being developed to make sure healthcare is always accessible. For example, AI agents in healthcare call centers help identify the reasons for a medical call, document the situation, and then pass that information along to a human professional. Watkins noted that AI should not replace clinicians, but it can direct patients toward getting the care they need.
Kirsten Ostherr, director of the MHRI at Rice University, posed a fundamental question: given the history of health technologies that do not prioritise patient needs, “Can AI help re-center the human dimensions of care?” Ostherr addressed this question with reference to a transformative AI technology—medical devices that transcribe and record doctor-patient conversations in real time. With this tool, doctors may no longer need to focus on typing medical records themselves, allowing them to spend more time engaging with patients, making eye contact, and having genuine conversations. Ostherr emphasized that this vision heavily depends on our trust in the quality, accuracy, and reliability of the transcription. This raises ethical concerns regarding accountability: who is responsible if AI makes an error?
Panel 2: The Promise of Technology and Health Equity
The second panel featured research from public policy scholar and University of Michigan professor, Shobita Parthasarathy, stories from patient advocate Hugo Campos, and practical approaches to innovation from Matthew Wettergreen, an engineering professor at Rice University. Parthasarathy examined the growth of hygiene-related technologies, such as robotic scavengers and smart toilets in India. While these innovations are often seen as progress, she highlighted they do not always benefit everyone. While advanced toilets are being introduced in urban areas, the maintenance of these facilities can be expensive for many urban residents. Moreover, there is a persistent issue of caste inequality: members of the lowest castes, Dalits, perform the most degrading and hazardous work associated with maintaining these toilets, often without adequate labour protections. Parthasarathy argued that rectifying health inequity requires broader systemic changes, including more substantial labour protections to accompany technological innovations.
Sharing his own experience of finding medical solutions for his father’s rash through ChatGPT, Campos discussed how AI can help patients think about solutions to their ailments. He listed reasons driving patients to explore AI, including long waiting times for medical appointments, monetary costs (in the US), and insurance limitations (e.g., refusing to cover some diagnostic tests). Campos emphasized that AI should not fully replace doctors’ diagnoses and recommendations, yet by providing accessible knowledge, it enables patients to take a more active role in managing their health.
Wettergreen introduced the concept of problem-solving through prototyping, an approach he calls “building like the rest of the world.” He practiced this approach at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK), a collaborative space at Rice University where undergraduate students design, prototype, and employ solutions to real-world engineering problems. The students gain hands-on experience with real-world engineering problems and develop innovative solutions, particularly in areas like healthcare technology, where resources are often limited. Wettergreen shared an example of a student-designed project at OEDK: a robotic device that enables people with limited mobility to stay hydrated without help.
A common methodological theme spanning all three presentations was how to ask the right questions when addressing technology and health equity.
Panel 3: Algorithms and (In)Justice
The third panel featured presentations by Darshali Vyas, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, Rayne Rouce, a pediatric oncologist and physician-scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, and Arbel Griner, a social medicine scientist from Princeton University. They all touched on themes concerning how advancements in technology have contributed to medical harms committed against historically marginalised communities. In her presentation, Vyas argued that our country’s preoccupation with racial difference and improper use of race as a proxy for genetic difference has infiltrated the ways in which medical care teams interpret test results and act to treat illnesses. Fundamentally, such practices may needlessly delay care for African American patients and exacerbate their worsened health outcomes.
Arbel Griner explored the effects diagnoses have on policy implementation regarding mental illnesses. Griner analyzed the language institutions use to frame mental health diagnoses as medical issues for some racial and social groups while they are considered negative behavioural traits in others. We see this disproportionate evaluation of symptoms in one group over another in American classrooms. While white students might be labelled by professionals as having an “inability to focus” that necessitates medical intervention, if the same symptoms are demonstrated in a black or brown child, they may be labelled “disruptive” and recommended for suspension. Rouce raised concerns about the ways that human bias can make its way into the algorithms that care teams use to treat their patients, reminding us that most AI algorithms are derived from large datasets created by humans, who are far from impartial.
Panel 4: Choosing and Refusing Innovation for Accessible Futures
In this panel, scholars discussed the incongruencies surrounding the choices users and manufacturers of AI health technology are forced to make. Rayvon Fouché reflected on the social and cultural contexts framing African Americans’ distrust of the healthcare system. Fouché opened with two cartoon images from the late sixties which illustrated how science-fiction artists envisioned a technologically-advanced future wherein black people did not exist. He suggested skepticism towards technological advancements stems from a history of black people’s non-existence within the imaginings of a technologically-advanced future.
Dr. Jaipreet Virdi of the University of Delaware presented past and future concepts of the visibility of devices used by deaf people. The central issue concerned whether or not assistive hearing devices can be a source of pride to which the wearer should wish to draw attention. On one end of the spectrum, mothers of deaf toddlers personalised children’s clothes to create pockets to hide and protect their child’s assistive devices, which could be kept secure while they navigated the world in a virtually uninhibited manner. Today, Virdi showed how users fashioned charms onto their hearing aids, using the functional device as another piece of attention-drawing jewelry to proudly express one’s individuality.
Historian of technology, Elizabeth Petrick presented on “imagined users” of Xerox’s Notetaker, a predecessor of today’s laptop computer, and their soft copy machine, a device similar to a tablet. She showed that while executives and developers imagined that the Notetaker would be used much like a modern-day, five-pound laptop, engineers could not develop a device that weighed less than fifty pounds—the maximum weight that most airlines allow for a check-in bag! Given how heavy this “portable” piece of machinery was, Petrick encouraged us to think about how a variety of imagined users—both with and without functional disabilities—might be able to use such a device. Much like the presentation given by Bioengineer Matthew Wettergreen, who trains Rice University undergrads to “design like the rest of the world,” Petrick implores us to expand what our imagined users look like and their capabilities. Rather than designing like the rest of the world, Petrick implores us to design not just for people who look and function like us, but for the rest of the world.
Conclusion
The Sawyer Seminar Research Symposium was an opportunity for scholars, patient advocates, medical professionals, and journalists to reflect on emerging health technologies. The conversations inspired the audience to imagine more inclusive spaces of care for patients, caregivers, and practitioners. Collectively, the presentations made a compelling case that we have entered a new era—one in which health and wellbeing are no longer the exclusive domain of medical experts and institutions, but rather collaborative pursuits across diverse actors and settings. In this era, patients can become resourceful seekers of medical knowledge and solutions. Engineers recognize how categories such as race, gender, and class shape their innovations, using these important identities to think more carefully about the intended users of their technologies. Scholars and scientists are working with communities not merely as research subjects, but as partners, learning from them and challenging conventional processes of knowledge production. Together, these shifts point toward a future that is shaped by shared expertise, mutual accountability, and a commitment to equity at every stage of innovation and care.
About the authors
Joy Chen is a PhD candidate in Philosophy and a pre-doctoral fellow with the Medical Humanities Research Institute at Rice University. Her research interests include virtue ethics, moral psychology, and bioethics. Her most recent project studies women’s autonomy in the context of assisted reproductive technologies.
Nkili Cooper is a PhD candidate in Rice University’s History program and was a 2024-2025 pre-doctoral fellow with the Medical Humanities Research Institute. She researches the post-Civil War black family, black childhood and black masculinity in the nineteenth century South, and the history of emotions.
