Physician, psychologist create T-shirts with eye-catching phrases

May 11, 2006 (WLS) -- Created by a physician and a clinical psychologist, medical t-shirts can help remove some of the stigma associated with various of disabilities.

'Semi-colon,' 'danger high voltage defibrillator,' 'I'm totally hip,' and 'the silence of the limp' are just a few designs that were created by Dr. Wes Fisher, dinn=tor of cardiac electrophysiology at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, and his wife, a clinical psychologist. They started Medtees a year ago.

"It started with just a few ideas and now has grown to over 150 ideas about half of which are actually patient-contributed," said Dr. Fisher. "People thank us for putting up these types of shirts and bringing attention to their particular disorders. Some of these are incredibly serious and disfiguring illnesses that people have so it suddenly people see a doctor and a psychologist playing with what's going on with them, all of a sudden they smile and want to have an opportunity to maybe brighten someone else's day and that's kind of the flavor that we've tried to engender to this thing."

Terri Gardner and her 4-year-old daughter Gemma have Crohn's disease. When Terri heard about Medtees, she thought what a great way to educate people about their disability.

"It is been empowering for me, I was diagnosed with Crohn's when I was 16 years old and I never talked about it. I was very much in the closet with my illness, because of it's digestive nature people just don't like to talk about those things and when my daughter was diagnosed at age of two all of that changed," said Terri.

Diana Reid is another customer.

"I have ventricular fibrillation and they had to put in a defibrillator like one of those ones with paddles that you see all the time on ER in your chest," said Diana.

After surgery, her sister got her this t-shirt

"And I thought it was so wonderful I just laughed and it was like all of the fears just went away so it to me it was the first part of my recovery getting t-shirt and I have a sweatshirt that says, 'Danger; high voltage,'" said Diana.

"The really wonderful thing is we actually donate a portion of proceeds to the particular, charitable organization or research organization that the individual that contributes the idea asks us to send it to," said Dr. Fisher.

A simple slogan can ease the pain.

"You can't afford to have anxiety when you're sick, you have to have laughter," said Diana.

Prices for Medtees range from $12.99 to $49.99. For more information visit www.medtees.com.

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