Medical Imaging and Disabilities

Jackie Stacey argues that medicine and specifically the study of cancer can be studied as a form of visual culture. Since the 18th century, medical advances have allowed scientists to see parts of the body that were previously hidden. X-rays, microscopes, and other equipment show parts of the body that are invisible to the naked eye in order to gain a supposed greater understanding of the physical body.

As members of a visual culture, we are consumed with the need for visual proof. We don’t consider information to be fact unless we can see it with our own eyes. An example of this is Jackie Stacey’s cancer. The picture of her body prior to her cancer diagnosis gives no signal or warning of the attack happening inside. She describes the desire to look at the image and be able to see the problem. Medical imaging can show us cancer inside our bodies, but only after it is detected in some other form. There is no grand signaling and usually not outward visual evidence of the beginnings of a cancerous tumor. Similarly, blood tests can determine a problem will cells that can detect cancer. However, doctors and patients alike use visual scans to confirm something that the blood work already showed.

There is an assumption that images are 100% fact. An image, such as a false image of a tumor, is cause for alarm even when it was a simple mistake of the technician. Because we are so consumed with visuality, we have been trained to believe that pictures don’t like. We forget every image has a contextual frame that is showing us what the image wants to show us, not what we want to see.

Previously a science that relied on personal experiences and interview, the world of psychology is now heavily relying on images of the brain to diagnose psychological disease. An example of this is depression. Here are two images of two separate brains on a PET scan. The right image shows a “normal” brain and the image on the left portrays the brain of a person suffering from depression. Scientists have apparently discovered that a decreased level of brain activity, as evidenced by the lack of white and yellow areas, is an indicator of depression. I find it fascinating that years ago, a simple psychological questioning and counseling session could be used to determine the existence of depression. Then, medical advances found that depression could be determined by chemical imbalances. However, in our age of visual proof, depression is now determined by a medical image.

Centuries ago, depression was a mental illness with no real treatment or recognition. Later, it became something treated with therapy. Today, with the help of medical imaging to offer doctors “proof”, depression is considered a serious illness for which medication and other forms of treatment are prescribed. Simply saying “I frequently feel sad” is not enough to get serious medical intervention. It took medical images and a visual image of the brain to prove that depression is more than just feelings.

While opinions vary, I believe that depression is a disability. It impairs the way one can carry on with daily activities, and it disables people from leading a normal life. This is what makes a condition is a disability. Prior to being recognized as a true disease through the use of medical imaging, depression was generally not thought to be a disability. This relates to McRuer and Wilkerson’s that not all disabilities are the same. Having a lack of visibility of a disability makes it less likely to be recognized, which can be both positive and negative. Depression does not fit the norms of disabilities. It is not visible and thus cannot be fully understood, leading to it often being dismissed as an actual disease.

image courtesy of:http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/medical/IM00356
McRuer, Robert, and Abby L. Wilkerson. "Cripping the (Queer) Nation". GLQ: A Journal of Lesibian and Gay Studies. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2003.
Stacey, Jackie. "Visions". Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer. NY: Routledge, 1997. 137-176.