Working With People With Disabilities: An Interactive Video/Lecture Session for First- and Second-Year Medical Students

Abstract

Introduction: Negative physician attitudes toward people with disabilities create barriers to health care for these individuals. Barriers can include withholding of standard medical and preventive care, provision of inferior treatment, and patient mistrust of the health care system. Thus, preparing medical students to care for people with disabilities is especially important. Educating health care providers early in their careers can shape their interactions while their approach to patients is still deliberate. Methods: We developed an interactive introductory session for first-and second-year medical students on how to approach individuals with observable disability in clinical settings. In the session, we explored-through a combination of lecture, discussion, and patient perspective-how negative physician behavior can create health care barriers, as well as proposed a framework for approaching patients with disability. We presented this session in two formats: (a) a slide deck with instructions that a presenter can use to deliver the session and (b) a stand-alone video introduction with reflective questions. Results: The session was evaluated by 151 first-year medical students, with 79% reporting either somewhat or much more comfort approaching individuals with disability following the session. Discussion: The integration of patient and physician perspectives, as well as the use of reflective questions, provides the opportunity for students to actively explore reasons for provider discomfort with disability and delineate clinical setting strategies to approach patients with disability.

IMPROVing communication about diversity, equity, and inclusion in health professions education

“…Biases are barriers to learning that center on internal perspectives and personal experiences. Traditional didactic lectures focusing on instruction, but lacking human stories, could fail to adequately connect with and develop the learner's internal perspectives (Hearn & Hearn, 2020) and unintentionally perpetuate biases against people with disabilities.…”

Barriers to and facilitators of effective communication in perinatal care: a qualitative study of the experiences of birthing people with sensory, intellectual, and/or developmental disabilities

“…In the U.S., Havercamp et al (2021) developed a national consensus on disability competencies for medical students, including communication competencies (e.g., “demonstrate communication strategies to best meet the needs/abilities of the patient”) [ 42 ]. Example medical education curricula have also been recently published [ 45 , 46 ]. Such guidelines and curricula can be used to ensure adequate education and training for perinatal care providers to increase their knowledge and awareness about people with disabilities and their communication needs.…”

Design and Implementation of Human-Computer Interface for Participatory Art Video Development Platform Based on Interactive Non-linear Algorithm

“…Although the performance media (i.e., photos, texts, and videos) of the Internet platform are different, the forms of performance are almost the same (Jennifer et al, 2020;Yuan et al, 2020). Participants can interact with the works by means of reviewers, bullet-screen comments, and favoriting, while with some artistic interactions (Hearn and Hearn, 2020;Vinken and Upadhye, 2020;Clarabelle et al, 2021). There are also art activities taking online and offline interactions simultaneously with specific processes, using the Internet for publicity while holding offline activities.…”