a brief update on my journey as a disabled phd student
This essay was originally published on March 28, 2024
Short link to this essay: https://medium.com/p/cfa585c609de
Note: This essay and conversations around it presented an opportunity for a larger discussion. Go to Mad at/in Health Education, a collection of ten essays in which I explore issues of access in public health and health care education for mad, disabled, and/or neurodivergent students and ways to change praxis.
Some quick news to my community…
After a lot of careful consideration, I have made the decision to move on from my time as a PhD student. I made this choice with the awareness that sadly, I am joining a very large number of disabled folks who have left PhD programs in health and STEM-related disciplines before me.
My decision to try to get a PhD in health policy research was motivated by my own experiences being harmed in health care settings as a mad and disabled person and also by the positive experiences I’ve had when disabled, neurodivergent, and mad folks have been in the room to protect me. I am personally very motivated by the need to change institutions and structures to ensure more disabled, neurodivergent, and mad folks are involved in health care and have power over health policy. After a year and a half in a PhD program in Seattle, Washington, my passion for working as a disabled person in health systems to reduce harm and advance changes to reduce structural ableism remains undeterred. However, I have admittedly learned a lot about being a disabled PhD student in our current research systems.
It has always been my belief that who you are, what you stick up for, and how you show up for your values in the present is the most important representation of who you are. I am very proud of my work, learning and unlearning, and the relationships I built as a PhD student in Seattle. I am also proud of myself for remaining resolute in my values about the level of support disabled, neurodivergent, and mad students should receive.
I leave this chapter having made so many friends, gained so many advisors, and built more relationships than frankly my neurodivergent mind can easily keep track of. I don’t have too many regrets and am grateful to have learned and gained many things from my time as a PhD student!
I remain excited and hopeful about returning to my PhD studies, at a time when the sort of support that all disabled, neurodivergent, and mad PhD students should receive is available, and I will be continuing to advocate on that front for the foreseeable future.
I want to conclude by reiterating my unwavering belief that health systems need disabled, mad, and neurodivergent people. We deserve to have power and control over our own health care and the health policies that shape our life on every level.
You should not build health systems without us.
Dielle
