The Pain Commensuration Technology Lab (PaCT Lab) embraces and celebrates cross-disciplinary methodologies to: collect and interrogate already existing and proposed pain scales; research the next generation of pain measurement and visualization; and produce interventions (scholarly, artistic, or otherwise) that seek to empower the patient in pain to advocate for a more just experience in the clinical setting. Throughout each of these endeavours, the ramification of turning the qualitative human experience into data and metrics acts as the overall lens for the project. More »

Updates

First Ever Seeing Pain Differently Roundtable

PaCT Lab brought together 12 individuals with diverse expertise and experiences, including pain assessment technologists, legal and ethical scholars, people living with pain, nurse practitioners, and artists. Each participant provided a unique outlook that can inform just development of technology-mediated pain assessment and care.

Members

Dr. Gabi Schaffzin

Dr. Michelle Charette

Hana Holubec

Past Members

Eric Jasson Rweikiza

Carla Fernanda Muñoz

Publications

Charette, Michelle. 2024a. “‘Play!’: Combatting Pathocentric Epistemic Injustice in Chronic Pain Care.” Qualitative Health Research, December 15, 10497323241300437. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323241300437.
Charette, Michelle. 2024b. “‘There Is Nothing Fun About Pain’: A Critical Phenomenology of Games for Chronic Pain.” Philosophy & Technology 37 (1): 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00691-y.
Charette, Michelle. 2025. “Tracking Ambivalence: An Existential Critique of Datafication in the Context of Chronic Pain.” Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 28 (1): 33–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-024-10226-7.
Charette, Michelle, and Gabi Schaffzin. 2024. “The Intersectional Implications of a Quantitative Epistemology in Pain Care and Research.” Canadian Journal of Pain 8 (2): 2454672. https://doi.org/10.1080/24740527.2025.2454672.
Schaffzin, Gabi. 2022. “The Perceived Freedom of the Visual Analogue Scale.” In Culture and Medicine: Critical Readings in the Health and Medical Humanities, edited by Rishi Goyal and Arden Hegele. Bloomsbury Academic.
Schaffzin, Gabi. 2023b. “The Face-Based Pain Scale: A Tool for Whom?” In After Universal Design: The Disability Design Revolution, First edition, edited by Elizabeth Guffey. Bloomsbury Visual Arts.