The Event
On March 27, 2026 the PaCT Lab hosted a roundtable event called “Seeing Pain Differently: critical conversations about pain assessment technologies” at York University, Toronto. The event brought together key perspectives on considerations of pain assessment technologies and lived experiences, and provided an opportunity for critical conversations between folks who do not often share a collaborative space together.
To do this, 12 individuals with diverse expertise and experiences, including pain assessment technologists, legal and ethical scholars, people living with pain, nurse practitioners, and artists joined us. Each of these participants provide unique outlooks that can help shape ethical development of pain science, including technology-mediated approaches to measuring, understanding, and treating pain. The generative conversations throughout the day showed a clear need for creating and building bridges across disciplines on the topic of pain technologies, and revealed a desire to continue developing tangible and practical means of strengthening these interdisciplinary connections over time. The organizers are hopeful that roundtables such as “Seeing Pain Differently” can become regular events that keep important and critical conversations about pain assessment technologies alive.
Key Takeaways and moments
Some key themes we’ve taken from the critical conversations of the event include: the role of hope in scientific innovation, the difficulties of defining and standardizing measures of ‘success’ in treatment, the challenges built into pain measurement scales and the value of listening to patient voices, the redistribution of responsibility, the speed of innovation vs the speed of ‘trust’, and the need for accessible tools.
Participants shared important insights on each of these themes. On the theme of hope for example, those with lived experiences of pain shared the way that treatments (technological or otherwise) are often framed as “solutions” to pain by health care providers which can create unrealistic expectations that can lead to disappointments or harms when the outcomes fall short. For those living with pain, one participant shared that what is more important than the “hope for cure” is the “hope for care”—a focus on slow, incremental improvements, adaptability, and lived quality of life rather than getting better or getting back to life before pain. Pain practitioners echoed these thoughts, sharing ways that they try to be mindful of managing expectations for patients in daily practice. Pushing further, a pain scholar participant offered critiques around ways that hope can become a marketing strategy. These diverse perspectives led the group towards important questions for further exploration: should pain specialists have to learn how to manage expectations and hope during their training? Should hope as a marketing strategy for pain management be regulated somehow?
Throughout the day, between presentations, interactive question periods, small breakout group discussions with case studies, and future planning conversations, this roundtable fostered a democratized space for diverse perspectives to listen to each other in a collaborative environment. We hope it is the first of many such critical conversations on the topic of pain.
Attendees and organizers
A big thank you to all the participants, organizers, and funding support that helped make this roundtable possible. We are so grateful to our 12 participants for sharing their time, expertise, and experiences with us and each other - we look forward to future collaborations with each of them! The Sensorium Loft provided an excellent space to carry out these thoughtful discussions with Helen Lee supporting logistics planning and coordination for the day. The Connected Minds Knowledge Mobilization Fund, SSHRC, and the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation at York University all helped support the various financial needs to ensure we could get all our participants to York University. The PaCT Lab members, Dr. Gabi Schaffzin, Dr. Michelle Charette, Hana Holubec, Carla Fernanda Munoz, and Eric Jasson Rweikiza are grateful to everyone who helped make this event possible.
What’s next? Future Events and Resources
This roundtable aims to be a launching point for forming a larger, sustained network of researchers, clinicians, people with lived experience, policymakers, and designers to keep
tabs on how the field of pain science is evolving. We hope to continue to build this network and share resources and developments in the field. One upcoming goal is to apply for further funding to support larger projects such as pain education modules, opinion papers, and research articles on the topic of neuroethics and critical perspectives on pain technologies. If you are interested in joining this network, please reach out to us here!
PaCT Lab Members Dr. Gabi Schaffzin, Dr. Michelle Charette, and Hana Holubec will be running a panel called “Neuro interventionism: Governing Bodies, Brains, and Futures” at the 2026 4S Conference in Toronto from October 7-10, 2026. The full conference agenda is available here!