Disabled Thread

[RadiumGrrrl]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hi everyone,

I’m disabled and wanted to start a thread for disabled premeds to connect. Moderators said it was okay.

In case you aren’t aware, applying to medical school as a disabled applicant are extremely difficult. Eligibility for accommodations is a lengthy and require lots of money, essays, letters, test, and time to prove.

Not to mention our application may center around our disabilities in our personal statements and “other impactful experiences” essay.

I hope that we can all come together in this thread to share tips. This thread includes everyone with all kinds of disabilities.

 

[RadiumGrrrl]

Things I wished I knew:

Apply for MCAT accommodations before you think you need to. The AAMC is extremely strict when it comes to accommodations and takes 60 business days and each inevitable appeal takes 30 business days.

Which means it can take months to get appropriate accommodations. Not to mention about 2 weeks from when you contact every single one of your health care providers. You also have to write personal statements and essays. So please apply as soon as you can, your accommodations for this year will last you a couple years.

Get every single specialist of yours to detail how you’re impaired to justify every accommodations, and what testing they used if applicable.(yes for best luck you need to act like this is a court case). “Evidence of impairment” is a big reason they use to deny it so you need to be as extensive as possible of when your impairment began, when you got accommodations, and how they helped.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Just a small plug and some insight: professional/medical education is very sensitive about the topic around accommodations because of the nature of training.

We discuss such challenges and the ways programs have addressed them (such as the Technical Standards documents) in Becoming a Student Doctor.

Yet those with disabilities still experience challenges, including the documentation for accommodations for standardized exams.

Read and look at the resource links in

Supporting Med Students with Disabilities and Chronic Illness | SDN

Learn about the Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness organization, dedicated to creating inclusivity in medical education.

www.studentdoctor.net

 

[astudentslawyer]

Things I wished I knew:

Apply for MCAT accommodations before you think you need to. The AAMC is extremely strict when it comes to accommodations and takes 60 business days and each inevitable appeal takes 30 business days.

Which means it can take months to get appropriate accommodations. Not to mention about 2 weeks from when you contact every single one of your health care providers. You also have to write personal statements and essays. So please apply as soon as you can, your accommodations for this year will last you a couple years.

Get every single specialist of yours to detail how you’re impaired to justify every accommodations, and what testing they used if applicable.(yes for best luck you need to act like this is a court case). “Evidence of impairment” is a big reason they use to deny it so you need to be as extensive as possible of when your impairment began, when you got accommodations, and how they helped.

Your court case line has more truth than most will glean as it is similar to a court case. But here's the difference. What do most people do in a court case? They get an attorney. In the accommodations process only one side has one (the school or testing entity). Only one side does this every single day. And only one side has unlimited time.

That last part is important like you already mentioned — 60 business days, 30 more for every appeal. Those clocks are theirs. Your clock is a test date and an application cycle. The process isn't just slow; it's slow in a direction that costs students everything and costs them nothing, what are they evening doing with t for 60 days....... So applying early isn't only logistics. It's the one move that takes their clock away from them which they use as a de facto way to limit accommodations. The system works against the student who already is overwhelmed just by medical school.

 

[astudentslawyer]

Just a small plug and some insight: professional/medical education is very sensitive about the topic around accommodations because of the nature of training.

We discuss such challenges and the ways programs have addressed them (such as the Technical Standards documents) in Becoming a Student Doctor.

Yet those with disabilities still experience challenges, including the documentation for accommodations for standardized exams.

Read and look at the resource links in

Supporting Med Students with Disabilities and Chronic Illness | SDN

Learn about the Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness organization, dedicated to creating inclusivity in medical education.

www.studentdoctor.net

Agreed on the sensitivity, and when it actual gets litigated it comes down to two words: "otherwise qualified." A qualified individual is someone who meets the essential eligibility requirements with or without reasonable modifications, auxiliary aids, and services.

That "with" means the accommodation analysis is part of the qualification question, not a separate favor considered afterward. A school cannot look at a student unaccommodated, decide they can't meet the standard, and stop there — and that is exactly where most of these disputes start.

Technical standards are evidence of what the essential requirements are. They are not self-executing, and courts don't automatically defer to them and should only do so after a school can show it actually considered the alternatives, their feasibility, and their effect on the program, and reached a reasoned conclusion.

Is there any need in the organization from a different perspective because I have noticed some misconceptions persisting in many different areas (cough reddit cough). The ADA is not that well understood, and in the educational context I ran the numbers a few days ago and there was less than 100 filed federal cases in the higher education realm filed this year.

 

[astudentslawyer]

I just realized this is the premed group so please to any premed reading this who thinks they will need accommodations for the step or comlex exams, do not take the MCAT without accommodations, they will use that against you in the future if denying the requests.