First steps: Inaugural Kirksville Healthcare Expo allows connection, collaboration, and discovery
Posted: April 14, 2026
On Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, ATSU hosted its inaugural Kirksville Healthcare Expo in collaboration with Northeast Regional Medical Center and Northeast Missouri Health Council. This event served as a unique opportunity for visitors to engage with a variety of different innovations, ideas, and resources in the healthcare field.
Since beginning in 2022 on ATSU’s Mesa, Arizona, campus, the ATSU Healthcare Expo has successfully united community members, students, and healthcare professionals of varying specialties. At the Kirksville event, which was developed in response to the success of the Mesa event, over 700 guests explored exhibits and attended lectures and demonstrations. One demonstration featured Adam Story, PT, DPT, OTR/L, OTD, MTC, FNAP, an assistant professor of occupational therapy at ATSU’s Arizona School of Health Sciences and chair of the ATSU Healthcare Expo in Arizona, alongside Doug Boswell, a Missouri farmer. Drawing on their combined practical and professional expertise, they demonstrated the ReWalk exoskeleton – a wearable robotic system enabling individuals with limited mobility to stand and walk.
Boswell was paralyzed from the waist down after an ATV accident irreversibly bruised his spine. He uses a variety of medical technologies to maintain his active lifestyle, including his wheelchair and his personal ReWalk exoskeleton, which has several advantages. The exoskeleton allows him to reach a walking speed of up to three miles per hour, ascend steps and curbs, and navigate uneven terrain. This versatility enables use in all areas of his life.
“You can use it to get up and walk around, go to the mall, hang out with your wife somewhere, have a barbecue, or even herd cattle,” Boswell says.
Prior to the expo, Boswell appeared on KTVO, a news station servicing parts of southeastern Iowa and northeastern Missouri, to perform a brief ReWalk demonstration. Many of the guests who attended the expo were drawn by this TV appearance – eager to watch Boswell pilot his exoskeleton in person. He demonstrated maneuvering from his wheelchair into the exoskeleton and, with assistance of forearm crutches, took his first steps across the parking lot.
Despite his confidence in piloting the ReWalk today, Boswell faced a rocky road on his way to recovery. Immediately after his injury, he felt completely hopeless.
Simple tasks were now impossible without assistance. For the first hay-cutting following his injury, he was forced to hire people to take on his duties. As a fiercely independent person, it was a massive blow to his self-esteem. According to clinicians, the nature of his injury made a full recovery impossible since spinal bruising is irreversible if the pressure is not alleviated within the first 24 hours of the injury. This news might have crushed Boswell’s hopes entirely were he not introduced to exoskeleton technology. During physical therapy sessions, he had the opportunity to use the machine, which provided intense relief after months spent using a wheelchair.
“You know when you ride around in a car for an hour or two, then you stand up and you hurt?” Boswell says. “It’s kind of the same feeling.”
Standing and walking have important benefits for wheelchair users, including increased strength and endurance and improved digestion and circulation. Prior to regular exoskeleton use, Boswell noticed leg wounds could take months to heal. However, after routine exoskeleton use, he said wounds closed at a significantly expedited rate. These improvements led him to become interested in acquiring his own machine. When the ReWalk exoskeleton model became available for at-home use, Boswell immediately submitted his name for consideration. Within a month, the ReWalk team invited him to a consultation.
Boswell’s experience with the ReWalk has led him to develop a passion for sharing his story. This brought him into contact with Dr. Story, who travels the country with his research team to meet people who use their ReWalk models in unconventional ways. The team identifies the product’s advantages and areas for improvement, which they convey to developers. Dr. Story heavily prioritizes accessibility in his research and outreach efforts through the ATSU Healthcare Expo.
“My job at ATSU is building a platform for people to come have conversations,” Dr. Story says.
The expo is intended as scaffolding for these conversations. The interprofessional exhibits offer a broad perspective of innovations and resources typically restricted to their respective fields. Dr. Story believes providing clinicians with the opportunity to network outside their specialties will result in better patient care.
After meeting Boswell, Dr. Story recognized his experience would contribute strongly to the expo’s goals. Not only did Boswell’s recovery demonstrate the life-changing power of innovation in healthcare, his rural, agricultural background made him a good fit for the Kirksville Healthcare Expo. Additionally, his perspective offered insight for ATSU students, many of whom go on to serve rural populations after graduation.
“Some people don’t even know things like the exoskeleton exist, and there are communities that could benefit from them,” Dr. Story says.
Through his outreach efforts, Boswell transformed his life-altering injury into an opportunity not only for himself but for the healthcare community at large. His testimony is invaluable in spreading awareness for exoskeleton technology, opening doors for future patients and providers while ensuring the best quality of care. His partnership with Dr. Story signifies a new beginning for ATSU’s communities by extending the same network of interprofessional innovation and community outreach founded in Mesa directly to Kirksville.