The March issue of United Spinal Association’s New Mobility Magazine features wheelchair-using doctors who have had to contend with medical schools’ outdated technical standards and institutional bias but have nonetheless persevered and succeeded.
| NEW YORK, March 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The March issue of United Spinal Association’s New Mobility Magazine features wheelchair-using doctors who have had to contend with medical schools’ outdated technical standards and institutional bias but have nonetheless persevered and succeeded.
NM’s cover story, “Disabled Doctors: Healing the Medical Model?” written by Tim Gilmer, reports that although the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 provide for reasonable accommodations in education, finding a medical school that complies with these laws is routinely difficult. As evidence for this claim, the article quotes from a study published in the November 2018 issue of Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges: “Many technical standards may not be compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act standards, as they are often vaguely articulated, rely on outdated language and concepts, and/or are not clearly presented in the schools’ admissions materials or websites.” The article goes on to cite numerous examples of the lack of accommodation and identifies a common cause of pervasive bias — namely, nondisabled doctors who have little or no understanding about living with a major disability. Due to their limited or nonexistent contact with patients in everyday settings, most doctors lack awareness of adaptations that disabled people routinely rely on to live independent, productive lives, according to the article. This pervasive lack of awareness results in doctors having low regard for their disabled patients’ quality of life. The article cites a study of 233 doctors, in which only 18 percent of the medical personnel said they could imagine being glad to be alive following spinal cord injury, compared to 92 percent of those living with SCI. Also, doctors with disabilities are underrepresented compared to the percentage of people with disabilities in the nation. A leading Harvard public health researcher, Lisa Iezzoni, hypothesizes that increasing the number of physicians who actively identify as having a disability and who require accommodations to practice their profession could improve health care experiences and outcomes for patients with disabilities. Against this backdrop of bias and underrepresentation, the article showcases numerous doctors who use wheelchairs that have managed to successfully practice medicine and are at the forefront of a growing movement that could improve health care for not only people with disabilities, but others as well. To read New Mobility’s full feature story on doctors with disabilities, visit http://www.newmobility.com/2019/03/disabled-doctors/. About New Mobility
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