Inadequate training in Medical School
I grew up thinking doctors were the ones who gave their patients all the comfort and made them feel accepted no matter who they were or where they came from. Yet, that was not the case until I felt the insecurity and the lack of knowledge due to the treatment that was given to my sister in law just because she had a disability. It was a normal yet a day with excitement. It was an appointment to the fertility clinic that was supposed to turn my family members life to the best yet turned to the worst all because she had a disability. What does this tell our society? Women who are disabled are not giving the proper treatment. Our healthcare workers are known as our “Helping hand”. However, the treatments and the negative attitude that is brought to our disabled patients is bringing a poor and inadequate treatments to disabled individuals. Medical schools lack training and information in providing their students with the right tools when it comes to dealing with patients who are disabled.
People with prolonged conditions or disability is known to increase over time. Medical schools are lacking to train medical students with the right objectives and evidence of individuals with disabilities. This has shaped our loved ones, doctors, law makers, and society to look at disability not as “one”. These actions deliver poor judgment by our professional healthcare providers, making it so unprofessional in medical field. The main problem is due to inadequate training that’s happening in the medical profession and continuous of this will lead to undesired work ethic and unskilled health care professionals towards disabled people. Training is needed and should be implanted as a required class in medical school to better help and train our future doctors to excel in what they do best, helping and saving lives of their patients. Campbell discusses that ways that approaches can be implanted if we worked hard toward this goal. As Campbell states, “In order to process disability experiences, students also need a prior exposure to the different ways that disability concerns are conceptualized, including the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches and the range of questions and orientations that each theoretical paradigm generates”. This statement illustrates that if medical students are shown adequate training and using different methods when treating disabled patients, the numbers will change to the better. This impact will have a great effect on our future doctors.
Disability is recognized differently in medical school than from the social world. As an individual who is eagerly to go into medicine questions if adequate training is given so that I can do my job right. Disabled people have quoted that unethical attitude and knowledge of health care providers. Healthcare providers seem to lack training and education to care for disabled patients. Medical students seem unaware and lack confidence when treating disabled patients. Most of them seem hostile and resistant to care for disabled individuals when faced with the situation. This has caused a huge toll on our society and especially caused a loss of trust in our disabled patients. According to Center for Diseases and Prevention, disabled people are known to be at risk for obesity, depression, and unethical health results. This all because disabled patients are treated way differently from non-disabled patients. Medical students and healthcare providers that have the adequate training and knowledge will work better with all individuals whether they are disabled or not and giving the right resources patients will need.
Medical schools are overlooking the facts and evidence that shows on surveys or the reviews that is done by disabled patients. Gender roles played a huge factor in how disabled patients are treated very negatively and immoral. According to Campbell, women with disability faced lots of inadequate services including services that are reproductive. This illustrates to our readers and audience that if negative treatments will be a continuous issue, then what message does that send to our future mother to be. If methods are done and approached in teaching our future healthcare workers to better health our patients, this will put us to be in the highest and best list worldwide. If our healthcare workers are provided with experience and classes on the background of disability and show statistics on both sides that have adequate training and one who does not, will increase the number in studies and evaluations. Working together to better train, will even save lives.
In conclusion, Disability has played a huge role in everyone’s life whether it being one with a mental health issue, prolonged condition, or just being an advocate for your loved one who is disabled. Disability is known to influence our lives and how we must treat it in order to better health the patient. We must draw the line that education on disability should be implanted. Adequate training must be happening to better our providers with the right tools and resources. If classes and assesmnets were provided in medical school, this will even help students to open up about how much they know of disability and if they have faced disability themselves. In addition, medical students with disability are not even approached or given the proper treatment because providers themselves do not know much about it. its important that health providers have the right resources and tools so that we can educate our medical students with factual evidence and to give the best health outcomes to our patients who have disability. If proper information and resources is not given to our future doctors, how can we rest assure knowing that our loved ones who have disability is in their hands. We must be the CHANGE!
Work cited
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. DATA2010: The Healthy People 2010 Database. Hyattsville, MD: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2010
Campbell, Fiona Kumari. “Medical Education and Disability Studies.” Journal of Medical Humanities, vol. 30, no. 4, Dec. 2009, pp. 221–235. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10912–009–9088-
