Med Student Wins $400000 Over Denial Of Accomodations

[2021Doctor]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Los Angeles, California – Late Tuesday, the Disability Rights Legal Center (“DRLC”) and Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP secured a $400,000 judgment on behalf of Lindsay Rogers, who attended Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California (“Western”) and alleged that the university failed to properly accommodate her learning disabilities.
The judgment, entered into the federal US district court record as part of a settlement between the parties, ends a litigation filed in 2016, following Rogers’ experience at Western in 2014 and 2015. The lawsuit alleged that Rogers experienced numerous failures by Western to provide disability accommodations that she had received at other academic institutions. Rogers intended to receive a doctorate in osteopathy to help provide medical care in poor and rural communities.

PRESS RELEASE: $400,000 Settlement with Major University Resolves Six-Year Legal Battle for Medical Student Denied Accommodations - Disability Rights Legal Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThursday, May 19, 2022 CONTACTChristopher Knauf, Esq., Disability Rights Legal Center(213) 736-1031 x1195; [email protected] Los Angeles, California – Late Tuesday, the Disability Rights Legal Center (“DRLC”) and Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP secured a $400,000 judgment on...

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[voxveritatisetlucis]

Should have added another 0 to the award. What is the opportunity cost of not making an attending salary, which she would presumably be doing right now.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

There isn't much available publicly about this case.

The plantiff complaint is linked on the website above, and is here: https://thedrlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/161021-fac.pdf As expected, makes Western sound terrible and uncaring. Per the complaint, her request for accommodations included the usuals which are not hard to address: more time on exams, recorded lectures, front row seat, etc. Also included "Permission to use a test booklet or computer, and ruler or blank paper, for exams." and "As needed, note-taker for classes, scribe for exams". The first sounds a bit tricky if exams are on a computer, they might need to find a way to print them out and have her answer them on paper. The second sounds more difficult.

Her complaint was apparently completely dismissed early in the case. She appealed and was able to continue with some of her complaints. The appeal summary paints a different picture: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2019/10/03/18-55003.pdf Sounds like she didn't actually tell Western that she needed accommodations, and the major blunder on Western's part was that she vaguely told her advisor who didn't report it up the chain, although the rules stated that she needed to officially request them. It appears that the main issue that Western didn't accommodate for her was not changing her class schedule such that she had a break between her extended exam and her next class. In that light, Western's behavior looks much less problematic.

 

[Browns99]

Should have added another 0 to the award. What is the opportunity cost of not making an attending salary, which she would presumably be doing right now.

Yea, no, why does she deserve an extra zero? Don't rush to judgment because a settlement was reached, sometimes it is a business decision vs a continual fight that would cost more in litigation.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I guess after reading the description above, I think that it was a just settlement. Usually, the ones that tend to make the news are a bit more egregious

 

[Goro]

Sometimes it's cheaper just to give their money and tell them to go away.

Wise @operaman, would love to hear your take on this as well.

 

[FootballAndSkiing]

Settlement probably to cover tuition and lawyer fees. Its a loss for everyone, except the lawyers.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I guess after reading the description above, I think that it was a just settlement. Usually, the ones that tend to make the news are a bit more egregious

Didn't actually make the news--it's a press release from the DRLC, who provided her legal counsel, and is clearly trying to promote the lawyers who represented her.

There probably is something that the school could have done to better accommodate her, but as highlighted by @NotAProgDirector there is more to this story than was apparent from this biased press release.

 

[deleted1100659]

Looking at the complaint, I actually am on the side of the school. What is her learning disability? It never specified. I mean that is such a broad term. How did they even determine she needs these specific accommodates? Some appear a little ridiculous, such as a personal scribe? Sure she had a neuropsych eval, but how extensive? How old was she? What did it show it exactly? Did she have dyslexia, ADHD, what?

Often schools get labeled the villian, or residency programs as malignant. However, medical school in itself attracts a lot of interesting people, to say the least.

When I was in medical school, it was ridiculously easy to get accommodations. Groups of students were allowed to take anatomy lab exams with unlimited time while we had like a minute per station.

Too many unanswered questions, probably her fellow students would know more about the situation based upon their interactions with her.

 

[Dr Meow]

I'm confused:
How is someone with a learning disability accepted into med school in the first place? Being able to learn is the point of med school.
Then how can a mere student with inferior learning skills punish the school for their own inadequacies?

Lets say, we enrolled a dog, and the dog can't learn properly, so lets sue the school because they didn't make accomodations for the dog's inferior learning abilities.
Another analogy is like accepting a blind pilot to flight school and then sueing the flight school because they didn't make accomodations for blindness.

What even is this..... it seems the role of reversed. What do you do with students that can't learn? You expell them. That seems naturally to be a school's power. And somehow it seems like the student played the uno reverse card on their own inadequacies

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Because it’s protected by the ADA. It would be like denying somebody admission because they have diabetes or seizures

 

[deleted1100659]

Schools often go above and beyond for students that have diagnosed disorders so when I see something like this, I am definitely wondering what the full story is before I make any judgement. In medical school, people with ADA accommodations had their own testing room, unlimited test time, etc. In residency, one resident with a seizure disorder was excused from call shifts.

The recommended accommodations in that document seem unique to say the least. Im not sure how it was determined those were specifically what she needed.

 

[pigsinacloth]

I'm confused:
How is someone with a learning disability accepted into med school in the first place? Being able to learn is the point of med school.
Then how can a mere student with inferior learning skills punish the school for their own inadequacies?

Lets say, we enrolled a dog, and the dog can't learn properly, so lets sue the school because they didn't make accomodations for the dog's inferior learning abilities.
Another analogy is like accepting a blind pilot to flight school and then sueing the flight school because they didn't make accomodations for blindness.

What even is this..... it seems the role of reversed. What do you do with students that can't learn? You expell them. That seems naturally to be a school's power. And somehow it seems like the student played the uno reverse card on their own inadequacies

So I am mostly just responding to your first line because in my opinion it is quite rude and disrespectful. Learning disability is actually a super general term for a multitude of conditions, many of which actually would not impact ones ability to practice medicine. For example sometimes people are diagnosed with learning disabilities because they read slower or lack adequate spelling ability as a child. Realistically they take longer to process information than they are aware of but can do it given the correct amount of time. So if someone who is diagnosed with a learning disability really wanted to go to medical school and worked their butt off to get in they could. It might not be easy for them, but it would just take more time away from other pursuits to ensure they are learning the information. Learning disability means that someone might not learn in the traditional way or they might take more time to learn information, not that they are unintelligent.

So I am not dismissing your point that you need to be self aware of your own abilities and that it's on the student to put in the work to pass the classes, but I did not like your blanket statement implying that people with learning disabilities are inferior and thus can not succeed in medical school.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

There isn't much available publicly about this case.

The plantiff complaint is linked on the website above, and is here: https://thedrlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/161021-fac.pdf As expected, makes Western sound terrible and uncaring. Per the complaint, her request for accommodations included the usuals which are not hard to address: more time on exams, recorded lectures, front row seat, etc. Also included "Permission to use a test booklet or computer, and ruler or blank paper, for exams." and "As needed, note-taker for classes, scribe for exams". The first sounds a bit tricky if exams are on a computer, they might need to find a way to print them out and have her answer them on paper. The second sounds more difficult.

Her complaint was apparently completely dismissed early in the case. She appealed and was able to continue with some of her complaints. The appeal summary paints a different picture: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2019/10/03/18-55003.pdf Sounds like she didn't actually tell Western that she needed accommodations, and the major blunder on Western's part was that she vaguely told her advisor who didn't report it up the chain, although the rules stated that she needed to officially request them. It appears that the main issue that Western didn't accommodate for her was not changing her class schedule such that she had a break between her extended exam and her next class. In that light, Western's behavior looks much less problematic.

I don't know about the time she was there, but western does offer all those things now

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

I'm confused:
How is someone with a learning disability accepted into med school in the first place? Being able to learn is the point of med school.
Then how can a mere student with inferior learning skills punish the school for their own inadequacies?

Lets say, we enrolled a dog, and the dog can't learn properly, so lets sue the school because they didn't make accomodations for the dog's inferior learning abilities.
Another analogy is like accepting a blind pilot to flight school and then sueing the flight school because they didn't make accomodations for blindness.

What even is this..... it seems the role of reversed. What do you do with students that can't learn? You expell them. That seems naturally to be a school's power. And somehow it seems like the student played the uno reverse card on their own inadequacies

She's not a dog. She's a human with a learning disability. This doesn't mean she can't learn. It just means she needs a supportive environment to thrive

 

[Dr Meow]

So I am mostly just responding to your first line because in my opinion it is quite rude and disrespectful. Learning disability is actually a super general term for a multitude of conditions, many of which actually would not impact ones ability to practice medicine. For example sometimes people are diagnosed with learning disabilities because they read slower or lack adequate spelling ability as a child. Realistically they take longer to process information than they are aware of but can do it given the correct amount of time. So if someone who is diagnosed with a learning disability really wanted to go to medical school and worked their butt off to get in they could. It might not be easy for them, but it would just take more time away from other pursuits to ensure they are learning the information. Learning disability means that someone might not learn in the traditional way or they might take more time to learn information, not that they are unintelligent.

So I am not dismissing your point that you need to be self aware of your own abilities and that it's on the student to put in the work to pass the classes, but I did not like your blanket statement implying that people with learning disabilities are inferior and thus can not succeed in medical school.

WHERE is the outrage and outcry of DISRESPECT when countless "normal" people are told "They're not good enough to be a doctor. That they should change careers"? Because they couldn't make the cut? Because they were "normal" people without the beneficial title of "disability". When these people who work just as hard but don't get the hypocritical benefits that suddenly appear when a minority of these people are able to obtain the title of "disability".
No! Society tells these people "Tough luck".

She's not a dog. She's a human with a learning disability. This doesn't mean she can't learn. It just means she needs a supportive environment to thrive

That was just an extreme analogy to emphasize the hypocrisy, that everyone is judged on their abilities, except these certain special people whom are protected and baby-sitted whereas the same argument for them "She's a human with a learning disability. This doesn't mean she can't learn. It just means she needs a supportive environment to thrive" also holds true and benefits everyone regardless of the disability title.

The difficulty of med school is the immense content of knowledge. Anyone can do well in med school if they got special babysitting. And potentially, anyone given 20 years can learn the med school content. The main difficulty of med school is the timing aspects. The density.

We're talking about future DOCTORS. We're beyond high school.

"Time" is part of the fairness of the exams. Then if you believe that time isn't an important factor in determining the abilities of a person as then everyone should have Unlimited time.

If one were to say that "X person has a X disability so he/she deserves more time", then that's unfair to the numerous other people who exist on the spectrum of "disability" or subdiagnosis. This is unfair to the majority of people who DON'T have a problem. Will you punish "normal" functional people with a "time limit tax" but give a hard pass to the people who have this less functional ability? That's absurd.

What about the numerous undiagnosed people? The people who spent many cycles but could not score well on the mcat not due to lack of effort? Wouldn't you say these people have a sort of disability too? Wouldn't you say just there are many many people who cannot get into med school as having undiagnosed disability? Why not let them into med school?

Do you think patients would benefit from people who systematically "cheated" their way through med school via this "unlimited time" hack?
All the time, people post tough love to the people who scored low on their mcats or gpa not necessarily due to lack of effort when all they had to do was be diagnosed with "learning disability".

Ex: It took me 7 years and 4 mcat attempts to do just OK on the mcat. Not for lack of effort. Never once did I believe I deserved any special accomodation nor will I admit having any disabilities nor stoop to the systematic cheating that is "accomodations".

After this, can you with any conscience tell a person "you won't be able to be a doctor. You're not good enough to be a doctor. You should change careers" when you support this accomodations cheating?

 

[RocuROMANium]

To play devils advocate, at what point does a medical student go from needing accommodations to violating the technical standards required to become a physician? If you read these standards they do not just state the ability to acquire information in a variety of settings but to do so quickly. Some of you guys sound like you’re ok with letting someone with rather concerning learning difficulties to attend medical school with any accommodations they want. I think this is too far.

 

[efle]

It took me 7 years and 4 mcat attempts to do just OK on the mcat.

Bruh you definitely need to try and get formally diagnosed before Step comes around

 

[pigsinacloth]

WHERE is the outrage and outcry of DISRESPECT when countless "normal" people are told "They're not good enough to be a doctor. That they should change careers"? Because they couldn't make the cut? Because they were "normal" people without the beneficial title of "disability". When these people who work just as hard but don't get the hypocritical benefits that suddenly appear when a minority of these people are able to obtain the title of "disability".
No! Society tells these people "Tough luck".


That was just an extreme analogy to emphasize the hypocrisy, that everyone is judged on their abilities, except these certain special people whom are protected and baby-sitted whereas the same argument for them "She's a human with a learning disability. This doesn't mean she can't learn. It just means she needs a supportive environment to thrive" also holds true and benefits everyone regardless of the disability title.

The difficulty of med school is the immense content of knowledge. Anyone can do well in med school if they got special babysitting. And potentially, anyone given 20 years can learn the med school content. The main difficulty of med school is the timing aspects. The density.

We're talking about future DOCTORS. We're beyond high school.

"Time" is part of the fairness of the exams. Then if you believe that time isn't an important factor in determining the abilities of a person as then everyone should have Unlimited time.

If one were to say that "X person has a X disability so he/she deserves more time", then that's unfair to the numerous other people who exist on the spectrum of "disability" or subdiagnosis. This is unfair to the majority of people who DON'T have a problem. Will you punish "normal" functional people with a "time limit tax" but give a hard pass to the people who have this less functional ability? That's absurd.

What about the numerous undiagnosed people? The people who spent many cycles but could not score well on the mcat not due to lack of effort? Wouldn't you say these people have a sort of disability too? Wouldn't you say just there are many many people who cannot get into med school as having undiagnosed disability? Why not let them into med school?

Do you think patients would benefit from people who systematically "cheated" their way through med school via this "unlimited time" hack?
All the time, people post tough love to the people who scored low on their mcats or gpa not necessarily due to lack of effort when all they had to do was be diagnosed with "learning disability".

Ex: It took me 7 years and 4 mcat attempts to do just OK on the mcat. Not for lack of effort. Never once did I believe I deserved any special accomodation nor will I admit having any disabilities nor stoop to the systematic cheating that is "accomodations".

After this, can you with any conscience tell a person "you won't be able to be a doctor. You're not good enough to be a doctor. You should change careers" when you support this accomodations cheating?

Be careful your inferiority complex is showing HAHAHA. In all seriousness I originally wrote out a lengthy response, but realized it is probably a waste given how narrow minded your post comes across. It overall boiled down to people with learning disabilities did not cheat their way into school, they are not coveted by admissions committees and they worked just as hard as me and you to be able to also call themselves med students.

Also I think you just blatantly ignored the last comment in my original post where I stated that I agree with you on many points, I just did not like the overall tone and sentiment of your comment. I am sorry if you felt personally attacked, by my comment, but that was not my intention.

 

[GoSpursGo]

WHERE is the outrage and outcry of DISRESPECT when countless "normal" people are told "They're not good enough to be a doctor. That they should change careers"? Because they couldn't make the cut? Because they were "normal" people without the beneficial title of "disability". When these people who work just as hard but don't get the hypocritical benefits that suddenly appear when a minority of these people are able to obtain the title of "disability".
No! Society tells these people "Tough luck".


That was just an extreme analogy to emphasize the hypocrisy, that everyone is judged on their abilities, except these certain special people whom are protected and baby-sitted whereas the same argument for them "She's a human with a learning disability. This doesn't mean she can't learn. It just means she needs a supportive environment to thrive" also holds true and benefits everyone regardless of the disability title.

The difficulty of med school is the immense content of knowledge. Anyone can do well in med school if they got special babysitting. And potentially, anyone given 20 years can learn the med school content. The main difficulty of med school is the timing aspects. The density.

We're talking about future DOCTORS. We're beyond high school.

"Time" is part of the fairness of the exams. Then if you believe that time isn't an important factor in determining the abilities of a person as then everyone should have Unlimited time.

If one were to say that "X person has a X disability so he/she deserves more time", then that's unfair to the numerous other people who exist on the spectrum of "disability" or subdiagnosis. This is unfair to the majority of people who DON'T have a problem. Will you punish "normal" functional people with a "time limit tax" but give a hard pass to the people who have this less functional ability? That's absurd.

What about the numerous undiagnosed people? The people who spent many cycles but could not score well on the mcat not due to lack of effort? Wouldn't you say these people have a sort of disability too? Wouldn't you say just there are many many people who cannot get into med school as having undiagnosed disability? Why not let them into med school?

Do you think patients would benefit from people who systematically "cheated" their way through med school via this "unlimited time" hack?
All the time, people post tough love to the people who scored low on their mcats or gpa not necessarily due to lack of effort when all they had to do was be diagnosed with "learning disability".

Ex: It took me 7 years and 4 mcat attempts to do just OK on the mcat. Not for lack of effort. Never once did I believe I deserved any special accomodation nor will I admit having any disabilities nor stoop to the systematic cheating that is "accomodations".

After this, can you with any conscience tell a person "you won't be able to be a doctor. You're not good enough to be a doctor. You should change careers" when you support this accomodations cheating?

To sum up what could have been a much longer post, that's not how learning disabilities work. The fact that you are even suggesting that having a disability is a "beneficial" title demonstrates a fundamental lack of awareness and understanding which I don't think I can clear up from a forum post. Maybe you will understand better after your pediatrics rotation 🙂

To play devils advocate, at what point does a medical student go from needing accommodations to violating the technical standards required to become a physician? If you read these standards they do not just state the ability to acquire information in a variety of settings but to do so quickly. Some of you guys sound like you’re ok with letting someone with rather concerning learning difficulties to attend medical school with any accommodations they want. I think this is too far.

THIS is the question that should be asked, because there is a point at which a learning disability probably is too debilitating for someone to effectively perform as a physician. Ultimately that is a question that is up to school leadership about whether the accommodations that are being requested are reasonable vs. incompatible with functioning as a physician.

 

[deleted1100659]

WHERE is the outrage and outcry of DISRESPECT when countless "normal" people are told "They're not good enough to be a doctor. That they should change careers"? Because they couldn't make the cut? Because they were "normal" people without the beneficial title of "disability". When these people who work just as hard but don't get the hypocritical benefits that suddenly appear when a minority of these people are able to obtain the title of "disability".
No! Society tells these people "Tough luck".


That was just an extreme analogy to emphasize the hypocrisy, that everyone is judged on their abilities, except these certain special people whom are protected and baby-sitted whereas the same argument for them "She's a human with a learning disability. This doesn't mean she can't learn. It just means she needs a supportive environment to thrive" also holds true and benefits everyone regardless of the disability title.

The difficulty of med school is the immense content of knowledge. Anyone can do well in med school if they got special babysitting. And potentially, anyone given 20 years can learn the med school content. The main difficulty of med school is the timing aspects. The density.

We're talking about future DOCTORS. We're beyond high school.

"Time" is part of the fairness of the exams. Then if you believe that time isn't an important factor in determining the abilities of a person as then everyone should have Unlimited time.

If one were to say that "X person has a X disability so he/she deserves more time", then that's unfair to the numerous other people who exist on the spectrum of "disability" or subdiagnosis. This is unfair to the majority of people who DON'T have a problem. Will you punish "normal" functional people with a "time limit tax" but give a hard pass to the people who have this less functional ability? That's absurd.

What about the numerous undiagnosed people? The people who spent many cycles but could not score well on the mcat not due to lack of effort? Wouldn't you say these people have a sort of disability too? Wouldn't you say just there are many many people who cannot get into med school as having undiagnosed disability? Why not let them into med school?

Do you think patients would benefit from people who systematically "cheated" their way through med school via this "unlimited time" hack?
All the time, people post tough love to the people who scored low on their mcats or gpa not necessarily due to lack of effort when all they had to do was be diagnosed with "learning disability".

Ex: It took me 7 years and 4 mcat attempts to do just OK on the mcat. Not for lack of effort. Never once did I believe I deserved any special accomodation nor will I admit having any disabilities nor stoop to the systematic cheating that is "accomodations".

After this, can you with any conscience tell a person "you won't be able to be a doctor. You're not good enough to be a doctor. You should change careers" when you support this accomodations cheating?

your post came off as very direct/blunt so inevitably some people will be offended by this. You are likely someone who had to work very hard to get to where you are and I would wager that if others were taking shortcuts/given possibly unfair advantages than that could be quite annoying.

I think it's all about context as there are two sides to this argument:

1. Disability should never limit potential, unless there is an absolute logical reason why someone shouldn't do something. Example: obviously someone with severe essential tremors probably should not be a surgeon.

2. Learning disability is a broad topic in itself. There are some learning disability that appear quite valid, others that I wonder about. The validity likely depends on the severity and what the disability is. That is the hard part is there are so many ways that people can go with this, in the psychiatry world, all the time people want service animals, accommodations, etc. Sometimes its hard knowing who would actually benefit from these interventions or who is just taking advantage of the system.

3. I think its a very delicate balance between providing someone reasonable accommodations to level the playing field so to speak, but not giving them ridiculous advantages either. Again, very situation dependent.

4. The unfortunate part is there are many people with significant disadvantages/handicaps who still progress to become great doctors. However, there are a lot of people who take advantage of accommodations for ludicrous reasons, and that was very easy to see when I was a student back in the day. Heck as an attending, I see it now. I often see it in the form of disability these days..but thats a whole different pandoras box to open..

basically we should ensure equal access to medicine but do our best not to go overboard either. Likely the people who are taking advantage of the system wont make it very far in life/medical school anyways.

 

[hallowmann]

To sum up what could have been a much longer post, that's not how learning disabilities work. The fact that you are even suggesting that having a disability is a "beneficial" title demonstrates a fundamental lack of awareness and understanding which I don't think I can clear up from a forum post. Maybe you will understand better after your pediatrics rotation 🙂

THIS is the question that should be asked, because there is a point at which a learning disability probably is too debilitating for someone to effectively perform as a physician. Ultimately that is a question that is up to school leadership about whether the accommodations that are being requested are reasonable vs. incompatible with functioning as a physician.

Thank you for posting this, it saved me from likely spending far too long on a post that would likely have just served to frustrate me and others.

 

[UndermmHg]

1) someone with an LD (learning disability) is of avg. to above avg. intelligence. An LD is when there is a difference in someone’s potential and performance, for example is intelligent can speak very well but writes at a level far below that. Or someone is a very good reader, writer, but not matter how hard they try, they are getting Fs in math. An intellectual disability is different (Down syndrome, autism not Asperger’s etc) often times do have lower IQ.

2. I assure you, the world does not cater to people with an LD. public schools will resists giving accommodations. In college yes, it is easier to get accomidations. Having a disability means fighting for your rights.

3. to get accomidations on mcat,usmle/Comlex: you must show strong hx dating back to grade school, show teacher surveys, educational plans or you’re not getting approved. this hack of cheating into unlimited time is not based in reality. There is no unlimited time on MCAT, USMLE, COMLEX.
-I was diagnosed w/ a reading disability in very early elementary school. I was in Special classes and attended speech therapy during elementary schools. In college, I went to tutoring and always had people read over my spelling. I studied all the time and got into medical school. In med school, I listened to the audio lectures again and again.

-The argument about needing extended time accomidations on exams and the medical boards and how this is not the “real world“ is not valid. There is dictation software in practice. Just becuase someone has to work 2x as hard on reading, math, spelling has nothing to do with their ability to communicate verbally with pts and other physicians, give tx or asses vs,labs, X-rays in a timely verbally manner. I’m a resident. I have made templates for myself with notes that are already spell corrected to get my work done on time. Having a LD makes med school harder but not impossible. I found a mentor, payed students in my class to doing welll as tutors to discuss things verbally. To do well on boards, I studied for step 1 for well over 6months and never went on the weekends,memorized all of pathoma, sketchy.

*If you want something bad enough, never give up and make it happen. Get up at 5am, study all weekend, work harder, get tutors take out loans to get more resources. You have to fight for it. Go to a poc bac. Bottom line: You either want it or you don’t. If being a dr was easy then all the premeds would be in med school.

-my school never altered technical standards such as unlimited time in the lab. I have a hard time imaging this. Schools care about their board scores and passrates. It makes no sense to get students use to unlimited time when they will not get that on boards, the school would be hurting themselves.

-emotional support animals do not correlate with an Learning disability. emotional support animal is for emotional problems. Service animals for people with a medical disability such epilepsy or DM is entirely different.

 

[efle]

Will just drop this here to stir the pot

Colleges Bend the Rules for More Students, Give Them Extra Help

As many as one in four students at some elite U.S. colleges are classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams.

www.wsj.com

Personally I am skeptical the rate of "disability" went up that much, that fast, for that crowd.

 

[hellosnd]

I go to Western and this does not surprise me. I also give the school zero benefit of the doubt.

- disgruntled 3rd year

 

[FootballAndSkiing]

I go to Western and this does not surprise me. I also give the school zero benefit of the doubt.

- disgruntled 3rd year

Collect your 400k

 

[Lawpy]

Will just drop this here to stir the pot

Colleges Bend the Rules for More Students, Give Them Extra Help

As many as one in four students at some elite U.S. colleges are classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams.

www.wsj.com

Personally I am skeptical the rate of "disability" went up that much, that fast, for that crowd.

I’m glad you appreciate the WSJ but pot stirring not needed

 

[Just D.O. it]

Will just drop this here to stir the pot

Colleges Bend the Rules for More Students, Give Them Extra Help

As many as one in four students at some elite U.S. colleges are classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams.

www.wsj.com

Personally I am skeptical the rate of "disability" went up that much, that fast, for that crowd.

I think efle is hinting towards a valid point here. A lot of the people here defending those with learning disabilities getting (and let's not dance around terms here) an objectively easier version of assessments that literally serve to compare students abilities to each other are grouping together very different accommodations.

Let me give you an example, I have a friend with neuro-opthalmic issues who will get headaches if he is required to look at a computer screen for a long time without breaks. He's not incapable of taking certain tests, but he will be hindered taking them on a computer. Thus he requests access to a paper version or some alternative of the sort when such a situation comes up. Now I think most reasonable people would support him getting such accommodations, and it would be laughable to describe it as "gaming the system" because if most of us took a paper MCAT instead it would be unlikely to significantly impact our scores.

Where things get dicey is when an objectively easier version of the test is put on the table as an option. Let me focus on the most common instance I know of: extended or unlimited time. I obviously don't deny that some people have certain hurdles they need to clear before they are able to fully express their potential, but can we really say that we are perfect at drawing the line between a "weakness" and a clinical disability? That there is no grey area worth considering? If someone was able to get extra time due to a diagnosis of ADD or "processing speed deficit" (these are the ones I've personally heard of) and this allowed them to get a higher score than they otherwise would have, then I personally am interested in the justification AAMC has for it. If speed is not part of what the test measures for, then why not give everyone extended time? And if slower readers should be allowed to showcase their true potential, then why not give proportional time extensions even to those who are at the lower end of "normal" reading speed. It's not as clear cut as some of the people here would like it to be.

@GoSpursGo said, "The fact that you are even suggesting that having a disability is a "beneficial" title demonstrates a fundamental lack of awareness and understanding".

But I think he misunderstood the point being made. No one is arguing that literally having a disability is beneficial. What is being said is that in some cases (due to certain accommodations objectively making the assessment easier), a normal person would actively benefit from getting a disability diagnosis. Since the average MCAT taker would see a rise in scores with a time extension, and since the AAMC does not indicate the presence of accommodations on the score report. So hypothetically speaking, someone with a trumped up or even false diagnosis could get the opportunity to take an easier version of a test and have that score compared to peers who took a harder version of the test for the purpose of admissions thus deriving benefit from being diagnosed with (not having) a disability. This is also, in my opinion, the most likely explanation for the trend in the article. A lot of people here seem to be way too optimistic about the prospect of people staying honest about disability when there is a tangible benefit available for the average person to game the system.

 

[mailloxe]

Actually practicing medicine or even just being on clinical rotations is SO DIFFERENT than taking step 1. The content knowledge of step 1 is sometimes useful on rotations. But someone's ability or difficulty with doing 8 hours of multiple choice questions with or without accommodations has literally nothing to do with their ability to do medicine. I have a friend who is a literal genius and who has insane amounts of research but also has a learning disability and gets testing accommodations, and got accommodations for STEP 1.

Most of our friends have no idea this person has or needs accommodations, he does just as well as anyone else on rotations, he did fine in preclin classes (He failed one organ block but that is honestly not that uncommon and the remediation is nbd, he remediated the same way other students at our school do if they fail a block, no special assistance other than his normal testing accommodations during both the original block exam and his retake).

His ability to learn and do and understand medicine is totally fine. But his learning disability gives him a disproportionate disadvantage with exam-taking, and since standardized exams have such a disproportionate weight on residency apps, it is so reasonable in my mind that he would receive some level of accommodations to address the fact that standardized testing is kind of a suboptimal way to truly test people's ability to do medicine.