I saw a story on the news the other day about a college freshman who was injured in a car accident a couple of years ago, she's paralyzed from mid-abdomen down with basically no chance of regaining use of her legs again (aside from possible stem-cell research breakthroughs) but anyways, in the story it said how she is starting her pre-med classes and going to be applying to med school to start right out of college and it got me thinking.. has anyone ever heard of a paralyzed person entering and finishing med school? I know there are doctors who were already practicing, became paralyzed, and continued to practice, but i've never heard of anyone entering med school as a paraplegic. I'm sure it's possible, i just can't imagine how difficult that would be..
Has there ever been a paraplegic in medical school?
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yes there has, waste of a seat IMO. It defeats the purpose of the technical standards... I would hate being a resident working with him or even a student rotating with him.
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Seriously? WTF, man. I'd hate to be a resident working with YOU.
they'd basically be limited in what specialty they could choose to psychiatry or something like that right? sorry Im not trying to sound ignorant, I'm just intrigued by this and trying to understand how it could work..
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There is a guy at my school who had a lower spinal injury right after he was accepted into med school and now he's going on into some surgical residency.
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Agreed.
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This person with quadriplegia was accepted to an MD school: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=529637
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Paraplegic should be less of an issue than quadrapalegics. The big issue with the previous thread had to do with a quad, and limited use of their hands. You can argue if that should be a standard for graduating medical school, but medical students spend a lot of time on clinical rotations doing things like IVs, physical exams, folly caths etc. The major problem with being in a wheel chair is physically getting around the hospital and in and out of patient rooms. (I can walk and in the ER or the floors I can barely get to patients in between the chairs and the bedside tables and the IV poles.)
People have done it before, not insurmountable. But certainly more difficult.
People have done it before, not insurmountable. But certainly more difficult.
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you, my friend, are a piece of trash. If that
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Not cool, bro.
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^^^^^so, trying to figure out whether troll or just one major gunner premed douche, leaning toward latter .....good luck with that
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I believe there is a quadriplegic MD/PhD student currently working on her final clinical years at my school (there was a job listing asking for pre-meds in a gap year to be her assistant). While there are certainly specialties that require movement and touch (surgery), there are many specialties that just require the doctor's brain and someone else can be the hands, even more so if they want to be more involved in research than being a clinician. Absolutely not a waste of a seat - for the most part, the brain is the doctor, not your arms and legs.
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I know of at least two people who entered medical school in wheelchairs, one due to a congenital anomaly and the other due to spinal cord injury. Both went into Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) residency, IIRC.
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Being paraplegic or quadriplegic does not preclude a person from being a fine physician.
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Not very sympathetic of a future doctor... not cool man.
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That's great news right there. What an encouragement to those who believe they have lost everything. Just watched today's 60 minutes episode-last story dealt with veterans who lost their limbs-what a sacrifice.
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I don't know, if you can't use your hands, the only thing you can do is take a history. You can't conduct a physical exam, do a lumbar puncture, start a central line, suture a laceration, intubate a patient, or put a pathology slide under a microscope. It seems like you'd be limited to being a psychiatrist or maybe a radiologist, and like Franz said (and was excessively dumped on for), you wouldn't be able to fulfill the technical standards to get to that point.
It's a feel good story when someone overcomes all that to reach some lofty accomplishment, but there is the very real concern of patient safety. There's plenty of skills that are up to the doctor to do that a quadriplegic just can't do. When there's thousands of applicants who are qualified and able to do the tasks required of them, why take someone who can only physically do a minimal amount of the work required?
And as jbar said, hospital rooms are tight quarters. Even rolling a patient in a wheelchair to a bed typically requires rearranging some furniture. It can be a pain doing it as a physically fit person. It would be a nightmare if you were the one in the chair yourself. It would slow you down, and your fellow residents and students are going to have to do more work as a result. I'm not sure that hiring a PA to do your hands-on work, or having an extra resident or attending around qualifies as "reasonable accomodations."
I don't think it would be offensive to say that a a paraplegic can't be a construction worker, or that a quadriplegic can't be an electrician. I don't see why it's so offensive to raise those same concerns when one is trying to become a doctor, where people may live or die depending upon the abilities of their physician.
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