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Editorial
Reimagining disability accommodations in medical education
  1. Quinten K Clarke
  1. Department of Psychiatry, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Quinten K Clarke, Department of Psychiatry, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; quinten.clarke{at}medportal.ca

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/pmj-2022-142088

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    Medical students are considered mature learners capable of navigating medical school with self-directed goal-oriented learning. Nonetheless, the academic accommodation process for learners with disabilities does not recognise this maturity and instead infantilises and patronises learners. The laborious accommodation processes can include extensive documentation from healthcare providers, previous educational accommodations and, in some cases, a personal statement outlining their disability.

    Examples of these processes begin before medical school and continue throughout postgraduate training. In the Canadian context, this includes the Medical College Admission Test, medical school preclerkship and clerkship experiences, the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination part I, the residency training programme and the Royal College examinations. Internationally, these examinations may include the Graduate Australian Medical Schools Admissions Test, medical school-based examinations, the United States Medical Licensing Examination or Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination of the United States, Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom exams and Specialty Certificate Examinations in the United Kingdom, the Australian Medical Council Examinations, and the Hong Kong Medical Licensing Examinations.

    Each of these stages/examinations has a unique accommodation process that requires additional labour on the part of …

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @itisquinten

    • Contributors QC conceived, planned and wrote the article.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.