Estimated Prevalence of US Physicians With Disabilities

Abstract

This survey study uses data from the Association of American Medical Colleges National Sample Survey of Physicians to assess the prevalence and characteristics of US physicians with disabilities among a survey of 6000 practicing physicians.

Program Access, Depressive Symptoms, and Medical Errors Among Resident Physicians With Disability

“…Increases in the number of medical students reporting disability, 1 coupled with disability-focused Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) regulations, 2 have sparked a growing interest in disability for residency stakeholders. Although prevalence and characteristics of disability in medical student 1 and physician 3 populations are established, concurrent data for residents is lacking. Addressing this knowledge gap, we assessed the prevalence of self-reported disabilities, program access (ie, access needs self-reported as met via not needing accommodations or receiving accommodations), and the association between program access, depressive symptoms, and self-reported medical errors in a large, multispecialty cohort of US intern physicians.…”

How Should We Build Disability-Inclusive Medical School Admissions?

“…Long before people with disabilities apply to medical school, it's likely that many of them experienced formal education accompanied by informal lessons on how to navigate disability-related obstacles, such as lack of access to technical and advocacy (including self-advocacy) resources; lack of opportunities to take science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses; scarcity of role models with disabilities succeeding in hierarchies of science professions 19,31,33,34 ; and historically entrenched systemic ableism reinforced by social, cultural, and interpersonal messaging-implicit or explicit, intentional or unintentional-that disability means inability. 23,24,25,26,27,28,36,37 Disabled learners commonly experience ableist bias as stigmatizing and oppressive in their early childhood, adolescent, college, and graduate and professional education encounters; inequitable access to shadowing opportunities 38 ; and high-stakes testing that is burdensome and time-consuming for them, as it requires far more documentation than is required under the law.…”

“…33 The number attenuates along the pathway from education to practice, with recent data showing that only 3.1% of physicians selfidentify as having a disability. 19 These data suggest that educational and professional development pathways are fraught with barriers, 19,33,34 despite legal protections and reasonable accommodations required under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). 35 One might ask: If including individuals with disabilities carries such promising benefits, why are so few individuals with disabilities in medicine?…”

Modernizing Medical Culture: Time to Embrace Healthcare Workers with Disabilities

“…1 Based on a 2019 national survey, 3.1% (95% confidence interval, 2.6%-3.5%) of practicing U.S. physicians self-reported a disability as defined by the Americans With Disabilities Act. 2 While the prevalence of reported disabilities in physicians is less than the general population, physicians may choose to not disclose keep their disabilities, especially hidden disabilities.…”