Hey Jae: have you ever seen a med student with a disability?

Have you ever seen a med student with a disability (a mild physical impairment in which the student doesn’t use a wheelchair)? If so, what were others’ reactions/how were they treated?

Short answer: no, to the best of my recollection I have never seen a medical student with a physical impairment worth noting.

Long answer: this is a really, really broad and open-ended question. Honestly, I’m quite puzzled as to what to make of this and wondering what prompted the question–curiosity? fear? What’s on your mind?

If I wanted to be picky, sure, I could easily name several physical “impairments” I’ve seen med students possess: myopia, foot drop, lack of coordination, hyperreflexia, hyporeflexia, incomplete freedom of movement in certain joints, etc. Where I would draw the line between defining these impairments as a “disability” vs. “normal variability” is something I’ve never even thought about, because I’ve never really considered them to even be worth noting until now, nor have I ever seen a med student treated “differently” per se based on any of these so-called impairments.

I suppose the answer to your question, then, is that our (extremely) blunt reaction is, “We don’t give a shit. There’s a ton of stuff to learn, extracurriculars to do, sleep to chase, and we’ve all got way better things to bother with than giving a classmate crap about something so minor. Honestly, if you tell us something’s ‘wrong’ with you, our nerdiness makes us more likely to think you’re awesome because we can use you as a fantastic learning experience that we’ll remember forever.”

About the only thing a med student will shun a classmate for is the classmate’s attitude–if they’re arrogant or a jerk, then whatever, they’ll soon find themselves isolated and ignored. Some people shun others because they fancy themselves as intellectually superior. They also quickly find themselves isolated and ignored, and (hopefully) discover they weren’t so damn smart after all (at least socially). Physical “impairments”? Whatever.

I realize this might seem a bit glib, but I assure you I truthfully have yet to find a medical student who discriminates on anything other than personality. If there is a specific disability you have in mind, please, ask away, but this is the best I can answer without any further specifications.

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“Hey Jae” is a series that publicly answers questions from pre-med students. I get these from time to time through facebook, e-mail, etc., so I figured if one person’s wondering, more likely are too. Feel free to pose a question of your own through my contact page! As always, best of luck.