Doctors With Disabilities Push For Culture Change In Medicine
Disabled Americans working in medicine are speaking up about their role in the profession. Not only can they perform the work of doctors but they offer a level of empathy others may lack.
Lisa Iezzoni was in medical school at Harvard in the early 1980s when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She started experiencing some of the symptoms, including fatigue, but she wasn't letting that get in the way of her goal. Then came the moment she scrubbed in on a surgery and the surgeon told her what he thought of her chances in the field.
"He opined that I had no right to go into medicine because I lacked the most important quality in medicine," Iezzoni recalls "And that was 24/7 availability."
Iezzoni didn't end up becoming a doctor. This was before the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990, and she says she just didn't have the support.
In the decades since, court rulings and amendments have
