We today welcome Rebecca Jackson to the Platform, who joins us as a 2024-25 Bridging Fellow in the Measurement Lab and the Philosophy Department. She holds a PhD from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine at Indiana University-Bloomington (USA) and was recently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) within the Practices of Validation in the Biomedical Sciences Research Group. Her fellowship project – entitled “Imprecision Medicine and the Future of Patient-Centred Care” – will use historical cases of non-standard clinical measuring to develop a clinically-informed philosophy of measurement which can guide the current and future use of idiographic (patient-individualised) indices.
Read on for our interview with Rebecca about her research and interests.
- If your research was a film, what would the title be?
Measurement Heresies. My research tends to up-end traditional assumptions about what makes for good measurement. Are standardized measures always more scientific than non-standard ones? Actually, no. For example, I explain how the “drop” is a fluid unit that varies in size, but historically it enabled anesthesiologists to pay more attention to an individual patient’s physiology and less attention to information that wasn’t as useful for patient safety. For some measuring problems, knowing that the amount is correct is more important than knowing the correct amount.
- What will you be doing during your Bridging Fellowship?
First, I will be publishing my dissertation research on the APGAR Score, Virginia Apgar’s score for infant wellness which is assessed just after birth. I show how the history of this score relates to current issues regarding racial equity in medicine, patient-centric research methods, and philosophy of clinical indexes more broadly. Second, I will be further developing my postdoctoral research, which explores what philosophy of measurement can learn from the history of patient-individualized indexes, as well as how philosophy can help guide of the future of patient-centered care.
- What expertise and experiences will you be drawing on during the fellowship?
My university education was in mathematics and creative writing, so I’ve always been drawn to interdisciplinary questions and communities. During my PhD, I learned from both historians and philosophers, and since then I have gained collaborators with a variety of expertise (midwifery, journalism, health research, clinical psychology, and more). And lastly, I’ve experienced being a patient, being measured, being listened to (or not). That might be one of the most common and most valuable sources of expertise that medical humanists have to draw upon!
- Why are you excited about working in The Platform?
The Platform is a great place to be at the cutting edge of medical humanities, among researchers from different disciplinary perspectives who see interdisciplinary research as worth the necessary investment in time and trust. The primary draw for me is the newly launched Measurement Lab, and working with Louise Creechan, Robert Chapman, Nick Simonetti, Coreen McGuire, and Alex Broadbent (as well as other Lab collaborators and affiliates). This lab looks at philosophical questions about how to measure populations vs. individual people, as well as the history of neurodiversity and patient advocacy. It’s basically my dream work environment.
- What changes would you like to see as a result of your research?
Measurement is often seen as one of two things: objective numerical facts, or dehumanizing reductions. I hope to change this. My research shows the depth and breadth of what measurement is and can be, as a deeply human activity at every step. Measurement is more than just a tool in the hands of the powerful to erase or delegitimize personal experience, and can even act as a site of resistance to power and injustice. More practically, I hope issues of measurement in medicine come to be seen as necessitating interdisciplinary collaboration, with health researchers, historians, patients, and philosophers coming together to do something none could accomplish separately.
- What interests or hobbies do you have outside your research that might surprise people?
I enjoy swing dancing and volleyball, and write mathematical poetry sometimes. Perhaps the most surprising thing, given that I’m American, is that I played football (soccer) for my entire childhood, and I look forward to picking that back up now in Durham. I’m absolute rubbish at it, but it’s good exercise.
We are delighted to welcome Rebecca to Durham and look forward to working with her over the next twelve months.
