Perioperative Clerkship Design for Students with Physical Disabilities: A Model for Implementation.

Objective: Disability inclusion is an important and growing area of focus for medical education that may be stymied by stereotypes about disabilities, lack of knowledge about accommodations for students with physical disabilities, or outdated technical standards that preclude participation of people with mobility disabilities. To support the inclusion of students with physical disability in surgical clerkships, we describe a proactive, progressive approach to the accommodations process for a student with a thoracic spinal cord injury entering a surgical clerkship.

Design: Working proactively, medical school leadership, disability professionals and the clerkship team collaborated on the development of reasonable accommodations for a student with a thoracic spinal cord injury entering a surgical clerkship.