One passion premedical students can show in their medical school applications is an interest in working with disabled individuals.
According to the World Health Organization, disability has three dimensions: impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered in executing a task or action; and a participation restriction is a problem experienced in involvement in life situations.
Simply put, disability is a condition of the body or mind that makes it more difficult to do certain activities and fully participate with the world.
Dr. Peter Poullos, clinical associate professor in radiology at Stanford University School of Medicine, founded the Stanford Medicine Alliance for Disability Inclusion and Equity, an organization that advocates for health equity for disabled patients and the inclusion of disabled health care students and workers.
In 2003, while pursuing his gastroenterology fellowship, he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After many months of rehabilitation, he regained the ability to walk but still had significant disabilities.
“I found myself with the real-life consequences from my injury — not only the symptoms, but also the effects my symptoms had in my ability to engage in work and social circumstances,” Poullos recalls. “After experiencing the vulnerability of being a patient, I wanted to advocate more for individuals with disabilities.”
Inspired by his own experiences as a patient, he saw a need to educate health care professionals about disabilities. Through the alliance, he organizes an Annual Disability Conference and advocates for disability to be incorporated through the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“Individuals with disabilities may encounter various challenges, including physical barriers to access in public and private spaces, societal stigma and discrimination, lack of culturally humble, welcoming, adequate health care tailored to their needs” and difficulties in employment and education opportunities,” Poullos says.
[READ: The Medical School Admissions Cycle.]
Activities Premeds Can Pursue Incorporating Disability
Premedical students encounter disabled populations frequently through their community service and clinical opportunities.
Working with disabled populations “provides a unique opportunity to understand diverse health care needs and the importance of truly accessible, enthusiastic and empathetic care,” Poullos says. “Engaging with us can enrich a premed student’s perspective on patient-centered care, the social determinants of health and the importance of advocacy. It also prepares premeds to become more effective physicians attuned to the needs of all their patients, not just those with disabilities.”
If premed students want to work more directly with activities that include disabled populations, here are six areas.
Clinical Opportunities
Premed students can volunteer at Veterans Affairs hospitals to work with patients who required limb amputations, Children’s Hospitals to comfort patients with cerebral palsy and stroke rehab facilities to assist patients who lost motor movement or bodily sensation.
“Keep an open mind when taking care of patients with disabilities,” Poullos advises. “Many of us have been subjected to microaggressions that have colored our experience with the health care system. Similar to other health disparity populations, there can be a distrust of the medical establishment, especially among those with intersectional identities.”
Community Work
There are community events, schools and organizations where premed students can volunteer with disabled populations.
Some premeds work at schools for children with special needs, where they help teachers and health care therapists with individualized lesson plans for students to achieve their social and academic goals. Other premeds help disabled populations through sports, such as coaching with adaptive sports teams or the Special Olympics.
Educational Awareness
Premeds can contribute to educational efforts, such as creating awareness campaigns to reduce stigma or developing resources to educate their peers about disability rights and health care needs.
Health Policy and Advocacy
Premed students can work with government agencies to ensure and promote compliance throughout their communities with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Premeds can also work on legislation that advocates for disability issues.
[Read: Why Premeds Should Engage in Health Policy, Advocacy.]
Research
Ample research projects relate to disabilities. For example, researchers can study causes of certain diseases that may result in disabilities, outcomes for injuries and devices that help individuals with disabilities. Engineering students can create devices like artificial limbs and hearing aids that assist patients with their disabilities.
There are also research centers at medical schools like the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center in Maryland, which studies the causes of health inequities among disabled populations and collects large data sets that premed students can use to analyze clinical outcomes for patients with disability status.
Academic Classes
Some colleges have disability studies majors and minors in which students take historical, anthropological, sociological, architectural, public health, public policy and literature approaches to studying disabilities.
At the University of California, Los Angeles, students can pursue a disability studies major or minor that incorporates hands-on experiences. UCLA students can pursue community-based internships to provide direct services for persons with disabilities and public policy internships with government agencies to promote disability issues.
At the University of California, Berkeley, students with a disability studies minor take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the experiences of disabled individuals. For example, they can take city planning courses like “Community Planning for Disability” or English courses like “Literature and Disability.”
[READ: 5 Underserved Populations Med School Hopefuls Can Work With]
Ada Chung was inspired to get involved with disabilities from a young age because she had an uncle who was diagnosed with several disabilities. Through witnessing her uncle navigate the complex health care system and face daily prejudice, she was inspired to advocate for individuals with disabilities.
As a premedical student at UCLA, Ada pursued the disability studies minor to gain a broader perspective of the disability movement. She learned more about the historical underpinnings of the neurodiversity movement and legislation like the ADA. Taking the course “Bioethics of Health and Disability” helped develop her understanding of the term “quality of life” and its relation to disabled patients.
Chung pursued activities related to disabilities both on campus and off campus. She was a peer mentor for neurodivergent students and advocated for them through leading UCLA All Brains, a student group that organizes events for neurodivergent students.
Additionally, she gained a clinical perspective while working with patients with disabilities as a clinic assistant at the UCLA Child and Adult Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Clinic, where she helped marginalized families deconstruct the complex diagnosis process. She learned the importance of shifting from reactive treatments to proactive strengths-based strategies, empowering patients to build resilience.
Through helping individuals with disabilities, Chung lobbied for more systemic changes and pursued policy opportunities.
While working as a fellow at the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities, she researched how member councils responded to COVID-19 and presented a report to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Her research identified strategies for system-level changes that promote equitable health access, such as improved funding for disability data tracking and information dissemination.
Chung advises other premeds: “Do not be afraid to challenge the status quo and think big-picture change to advocate for the patient population you care about.”
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Ways Premed Students Can Work With People With Disabilities originally appeared on usnews.com
