Docs With Disabilities

In this 2-part episode, Dr. Meeks visits Stanford to get a glimpse of a "day in the life" of Dr. Peter Poullos, a clinical associate professor of radiology and gastroenterology & hepatology, and a person with a physical disability. During this visit, Dr. Meeks observes Pete in action, interviews his interns, and chats with Pete about his experience retraining after disability, his ascent to leadership, and his hope for the future of disability in medicine.

Key Words: Physical Disability, Wheelchair, Segway, Partial Paralysis, Accident, Professor, Radiology, Gastroenterology, Hepatology

In this 2-part episode, Dr. Meeks visits Stanford to get a glimpse of a "day in the life" of Dr. Peter Poullos, a clinical associate professor of radiology and gastroenterology & hepatology, and a person with a physical disability. During this visit, Dr. Meeks observes Pete in action, interviews his interns, and chats with Pete about his experience retraining after disability, his ascent to leadership, and his hope for the future of disability in medicine.

Key Words: Physical Disability, Wheelchair, Segway, Partial Paralysis, Accident, Professor, Radiology, Gastroenterology, Hepatology

Dr. Nonacs is a staff psychiatrist with the Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry Clinical Research Program at MGH, with an appointment as an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

In this episode, Dr. Nonacs discusses identifying as a doctor with a disability, her experiences with training and employment and the changes needed in medical education.

Key Words: Physical Disability, Visual Disability, Stargardt's Disease, Psychiatry

In this episode we chat with Walker Keenan, a psychiatry resident at Yale University and graduate of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. In this episode, Walker discusses his path to self-advocacy, how his multiple marginalized identities inform medicine, what it means to be ableist and why #DocsWithDisabilities are a benefit to the physician workforce.

Key Words: Cognitive Disability, Nonverbal Learning Disorder, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Psychiatry

In this episode we chat with Alice Wong, disability activist, media producer, and a consultant. She is the founder and Project Coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project, a project collecting oral histories of people with disabilities in the United States that is being run in coordination with StoryCorps. The Disability Visibility Project was created on the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. As of 2018, the project had collected approximately 140 oral histories.

Her new project is an anthology titled, Disability Visibility First Person Stories from the 21st Century. Joining Alice in part 2 of this episode is Dr. Diana Cejas, a physician with a disability and one of the authors in Disability Visibility. Dr. Cejas shares her journey to becoming a person with a disability and how her dual identities as a patient and a physician inform her work with patients. Her essay is titled, Taking charge of my story as a cancer patient at the hospital where I work.

Key Words: BIPOC, Physical Disability, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Activist

In this episode we chat with Alice Wong, disability activist, media producer, and a consultant. She is the founder and Project Coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project, a project collecting oral histories of people with disabilities in the United States that is being run in coordination with StoryCorps. The Disability Visibility Project was created on the 25th anniversary of the Americans withDisabilities Act of 1990. As of 2018, the project had collected approximately 140 oral histories.

Her new project is an anthology titled, Disability Visibility First Person Stories from the 21st Century. Joining Alice in part 2 of this episode is Dr. Diana Cejas, a physician with a disability and one of the authors in Disability Visibility. Dr. Cejas shares her journey to becoming a person with a disability and how her dual identities as a patient and a physician inform her work with patients. Her essay is titled, Taking charge of my story as a cancer patient at the hospital where I work.

Key Words: BIPOC, Chronic Illness, Cancer, Stroke, Pediatrics, Neurologist, Activist

The National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP) conference was canceled due to COVID-19, but this scheduled panel moved to an online format in the form of this Podcast!

Given the intense competition for admission to US medical schools pre-medical students with disabilities, whether they're learning, psychological, physical, sensory, or chronic health, face additional challenges including: 1) Determining whether or not they're going to disclose information about their disability and at what stage of the application process; 2) The need to identify schools that offer the best environment and resources to thrive as an individual with a disability; 3) Requesting accommodations for the various stages of the admissions process, including evaluations associated with admissions review like the Casper or the MMI or logistics for the interview day. This webinar addresses these questions and our panel offers a wealth of advice.

Guests Include:

Gail Glicksman, PhD, Assistant Dean for Health Professions Advising at Bryn Mawr college

Dr. Steven Gay, Dean for Admissions at theUniversity of Michigan Medical School

Charlotte O'Connor, Learning and Disability specialist at the University of Michigan Medical School

Jacob Lowy, Medical Student at the University of Michigan Medical School

Key Words: Law, Education, and/or Research, Medical Education, Disability

On Saturday, June 20th, Dr. Poullos hosted the Stanford Med School of Medicine's first annual Conference on Disability in Healthcare and Medicine. The event was an enormous success and attended by over a thousand people in over five countries. Dr. Poullos and Meeks debriefed after the conference, and shared a common question. What's next? This is a big question to be sure, and one filled with possibilities for what inclusion in medicine could be.

Dr. Poullos and Meeks invited some colleagues and medical education leaders to the special edition of the podcast to discuss how we can work collectively to build on this momentum.

Guests Include:

Chiquita Collins, the chief diversity officer and Vice Dean for Inclusion and Diversity at the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine

Iris Gibbs, Associate Dean of Admissions for Stanford Medicine

Michael Kim, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs

Zoie Sheets, a medical student from the University of Illinois, Chicago

Bonnie Sweenor, Associate professor, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Key Words: Law, Education, and/or Research, Medical Education

Dr. Paige Terrien Church is a neonatologist and a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at the University of Toronto. As the Director of the Neonatal Follow Up Program, she is able to connect with her young patients on a very unique level through shared experiences. This episode of the #DocsWithDisabilities podcast features Dr. Church's journey through her training and career as a physician with a disability. The discussion stems from her 2017 publication in JAMA Pediatrics, titled "A Personal Perspective on Disability: Between the Words," in which Dr. Church publicly discloses her disability and calls upon the medical community to change the culture of medicine to one of "respect, awareness of stigma, possibility, and honesty" for people with disabilities.

Key Words: Physical Disability, Spina Bifida, Neonatologist, Pediatrics

Interviewee: Joseph Samona

Interviewer: Dr. Lisa Meeks

Description:

Joseph Samona is a fourth-year dental student at the University of Michigan, graduating in May 2020. As a future dentist with a profound hearing loss, he aims to improve access to oral health care in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities. He is also a co-founder of Michigan Deaf Health. In our very first video episode, Joe discusses his experiences applying to dental school, accessing accommodations, and taking action to make oral health education more accessible for American Sign Language users.

ASL Video version: https://bit.ly/DWDDeafVideo

Key Words: Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Dentistry, Student, Medical Education