Episode 232: Disability in Medicine

From Rio Bravo qWeek · 00:26:50

Show by Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program

Welcome to episode 232. It is good to be back in front of the microphones. My name is Hector Arreaza, I’m a faculty member and APD in the Clinica Sierra Vista - Rio Bravo FM Residency Program. Today we’ll be talking about chronic illness and disability in medicine. As in the general population, a number of medical students, residents, and physicians deal with these issues and it’s often a silent, hidden struggle.I got interested in the topic of chronic illness and disability in medicine because it’s personal. I have chronic vertigo due to Meniere’s disease and vestibular migraine, and I used a cane for support during my first two years of medical school. I’m now in remission, but I’m still interested in the topic and in supporting other folks in medicine dealing with disability. I knew I wasn’t the only disabled medical student, although it sometimes felt like it. I knew about some famous examples. I took several seminar classes with Dr. Tim Cordes, who is blind, when we were both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was doing my PhD, and he was doing an MD-PhD. Dr. Michael Ain, an orthopedic surgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, has achondroplasia. And RJ Roggeveen, a medical student at Dalhousie University in Canada, uses a wheelchair. These examples, like mine, stand out because we have visible disabilities – we use or used mobility aids, or we have an unusual appearance. But many others have invisible disabilities. Most of us never talk about our conditions. I’m interested in removing the stigma.Personal experience with disability as a medical student.K: My medical school, Western Atlantic University School of Medicine, was incredibly supportive. I was upfront about my vertigo, and they were willing to take a chance on a nontraditional student with a mobility disability. They even helped me to work out some ways to perform examinations that were challenging to a person with vertigo. I used to have a slight sway when I stood that made doing fundoscopic examination very difficult. The solution is simple: sit in a chair in front of a seated patient. There’s a wheeled stool in every examination room. Problem solved.Reasons for people with disabilities to be able to practice medicine.1. Chronic illness or disability doesn’t define a person. We have talents and skills outside of our health conditions. With appropriate treatment, the majority of us can manage our conditions or go into remission. 2. It’s important that patients see medical practitioners with health conditions. It’s a bit of a paradox. Some patients will think that if physicians can’t cure themselves, how can they cure others? But even more patients will see a physician with diabetes wearing a CGM and think, hmm, maybe I can maintain healthy glucose levels too. We give patients great advice about their health conditions. Those of us with chronic disease or disability can also openly model what taking that advice looks like. 3. The US faces a severe shortage of physicians, especially those in primary care. Losing able physicians due to their health status is a bad idea. More than 100 million Americans live in designated primary care shortage areas, and the Health Resources and Services Administration (AKA HRSA) projects a shortage of roughly 70,000 primary care physicians by 2038.4. To encourage kids to go into medicine. They need to know it is possible to be a doctor with special needs.Prevalence of disability among physicians.There’s a great article from 2021 in JAMA Network Open that surveyed a representative sample of 6,000 practicing physicians with chronic illness. It grouped chronic illness and disability, so I can’t separate them. The researchers found that 3% of the physicians had a disability. The most common disabilities were chronic health conditions at 30%, mobility issues at 28%, psychological at 14%, a class called Other such as essential tremor at 13%, hearing at 12%, adult ADHD at 10%, visual at 8%, and learning at 3%.Also, 16% of physicians reported multiple disabilities (like hearing and mobility), and those with disability were more likely to be “older.” Interestingly, the prevalence of disability among physicians is far lower than that of the general population, which is reported at about 25% in the US.A 2026 large cross-sectional study of data from the 2021 Canadian census, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found comparable results: 5% of physicians reported a disability “always or often”. Again, this is far lower than that of the general Canadian working population, reported as 10.8%.Prevalence of disability among medical students.In my research, estimates vary by study, survey population, and the definition of disability. There is a 2025 study in JAMA Internal Medicine that used results from the 2024 Association of American Medical Colleges Graduation Questionnaire. About 11% of graduates reported a disability, with the most common being learning disabilities at 62%, followed by chronic illness…

More episodes of Rio Bravo qWeek

More episodes

PodSearch is a free, independent podcast search engine. Read about PodSearch, the privacy policy or contact us.