In this episode of Leading with Health, I explore our healthcare system’s attitudes towards doctors with disabilities. This was inspired by the article, What Medicine Can Learn from Doctors and Researchers with Disabilities.

Highlights include:

8:29 – JM: “You’re talking about a system that is all about healing that doesn’t actually value the basic health of its participants, of its own members, of its own staff.”

10:37 – JM: “It’s not so much that we are scared of being disabled … but it’s what will happen to us. What will happen to our social circle, what does that mean for us as people and our identity … we’re scared of becoming that ‘other’.”

11:04 – JM: “We’re so scared of looking at this that we simply don’t.”

11:18 – JM: “Our culture does not do a very good job of helping people understand how to handle emotions, especially uncomfortable emotions.”

11:29 – JM: “There are no negative emotions; there are just emotions that are more comfortable than others.”

11:50 – Why people close down in the face of people with disabilities.

13:34 – JM: “If we devalue our providers with disabilities, what does that say about our patients and what we think about them?”

15:42 – JM: “Why are we not educated on how many options there are to help people with different disabilities?”

18:10 – JM: “We don’t value real-life experiences as much as didactic, academic knowledge and training.”

21:06 – JM: “We are not taught how to ask difficult questions or to discuss anything uncomfortable.”

Leading with Health is hosted by Jennifer Michelle. Jennifer has a Master’s in Public Health and Epidemiology and is a certified EMT. As President of Michelle Marketing Strategies, Jennifer specializes in healthcare marketing. She is on a mission to help women find their voice so they can create a stronger, more responsive healthcare system.