Physicians with Disabilities and the Physician Workforce: A Need to Reassess Our Policies

Abstract

People with disabilities make up about 20% of the population, yet only a tiny fraction of matriculants to medical school have disabilities. Attempts to define core technical standards and competencies have not kept pace with technological changes, diverse specialization, and changing practice options. This has resulted in the inappropriate exclusion of some people with disabilities. Medical schools determine how any qualified applicant, regardless of physical or cognitive ability, can be effectively accommodated and counseled in achieving the most appropriate medical career. A serious effort to redefine the technical standards and core competencies of the 21st century medical education at the undergraduate and graduate levels would likely resolve many of the troubling questions regarding medical students with disabilities. We have made some recommendations to organized medicine for constructing an agenda to address these issues.

Reassessing Physical Disability Among Graduating US Medical Students

“…much additional time, talents, and training were needed to train MSPD. 26 Dr. DeLisa countered that MSPD were no more likely than other medical students to engage in reckless and dangerous acts. 26 Previous study had shown that MSPD performed academically at the same level as their nondisabled peers.…”

“…26 Dr. DeLisa countered that MSPD were no more likely than other medical students to engage in reckless and dangerous acts. 26 Previous study had shown that MSPD performed academically at the same level as their nondisabled peers. 16 There was no reason to suggest that academic standards for MSPD had for some reason fallen during the course of the past 25 yrs.…”

“…2,3 Finally, while some contended that training MSPD was not cost-effective, Dr. DeLisa suggests that the alternative, consigning persons to lifelong disability, is not a viable option. 26 Perhaps, now is the time to include MSPD in the medical fold in greater rather than lesser numbers. 27 An unfortunate obstacle to the acceptance of disabled physicians by their more able-bodied peers remains the mistaken association of physical disability with incompetence.…”

Supporting students with disability and health issues: lowering the social barriers

“…Although the issues of disability and health are closely wedded to those of individual entitlement and access, they also have resonance for patient care. It is to be noted that health care professionals with disabilities feel they can achieve improved communication with patients, and a better understanding of their needs, as a result of their own experiences of living with disability 9,22,23 . A patient may well value the fact that a doctor who is providing care has overcome his or her own difficulties related to disability or ill health and, therefore, may well be better able to empathise with and support the patient.…”

Medical students’ attitudes towards disability and support for disability in medicine

“…disclosed a disability, at least a proportion of whom will have had a disability at the time of medical school (DeLisa and Thomas 2005). It may be that not all medical students disclose disability, possibly due to fear of discrimination, or not regarding themselves as disabled, or being apprehensive of the potential outcome of disclosure (Social Care Workforce Research Unit 2007).…”