Technical Standards from Newly Established Medical Schools: A Review of Disability Inclusive Practices

Introduction Technical standards document US medical school's nonacademic criteria necessary for admission, persistence, and graduation and communicate the school's commitment to disability inclusion and accommodation but are considered one of the largest barriers for students with disabilities. Calls for more inclusive technical standards have increased in recent years, yet the impact of this work on changing technical standards has not been measured. The establishment of 15 new US MD- and DO-granting medical schools between 2017 to 2020 offered a unique opportunity to evaluate differences in the inclusive nature of newly developed technical standards. Method We conducted a document analysis of 15 newly formed medical schools’ technical standards to determine the availability and inclusive nature of the standards as they pertain to students with sensory and mobility disabilities. Technical standards were coded for: ease of obtaining technical standards, the school's stated willingness to provide reasonable accommodations, the origin of responsibility for accommodation request and implementation, and the school's openness to intermediaries or auxiliary aids. Results Of the 15 schools, 73% of the technical standards were not easy to locate online. Few (13%) included language that support disability accommodations. Most (73%) used language that was coded as ‘restrictive’ for students with physical or sensory disabilities. Coding of the newly accredited US MD and DO medical schools suggests that newly created technical standards are more restrictive than those in previous studies. Conclusions Efforts to create more inclusive technical standards have not yet been realized. Newly formed US MD- and DO-granting medical schools may perpetuate historically restrictive technical standards that serve as barriers to applicants with disabilities. Future research should evaluate the role of medical school accrediting bodies to go beyond simply requiring technical standards to ensuring that the standards are readily available and appropriately convey the availability of reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities.

Coming home: Why veterans with disabilities withhold workplace accommodation requests

Veterans with disabilities are often hesitant to request an accommodation in the workplace, despite the fact that many intranational legal frameworks require employers to provide reasonable accommodation. This study draws from social identity and disability help-seeking theoretical perspectives to examine various factors – veteran identity, disability attributes, and workplace inclusive climate perceptions – which shape feelings of psychological safety and the decision to request a disability accommodation among military veterans with disabilities. Findings suggest veteran identity strain (an incongruence between one’s civilian work and military identity) is related to withholding of an accommodation request through decreased psychological safety. We also find veteran identity strain is less likely to be associated with decreased psychological safety when an organization is perceived to have a strong climate of inclusion, especially for military veterans with higher degrees of disability invisibility. The current study sheds light on why veterans with disabilities might not engage in help-seeking behaviors, and contributes to research streams on workplace disability and veteran workplace integration. Practically, we encourage employers to be especially aware of the needs of vulnerable employees and to develop inclusive climates in order to better support all military personnel transitioning to a civilian workforce.

Accommodation Request Strategies Among Employees With Disabilities: Impacts and Associated Factors

The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence of different workplace accommodation request strategies, the effectiveness of different request approaches, and situational and individual factors associated with different request strategies for individuals with disabilities. Common action plans of accommodation requests may vary depending on decisions about mentioning the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) (or not) and whether a formal (or informal) request is submitted, though past literature has focused primarily on formal accommodation requests made under the auspices of the ADA. Participants ( n = 408) were recruited from rehabilitation agencies and organizations serving people with disabilities in the United States. The results indicated that informal requests without mentioning the ADA were found most often, followed by formal requests while not mentioning the ADA, formal requests while mentioning the ADA, and informal requests while mentioning the ADA. The odds of acquiring the requested accommodation were significantly higher, relative to other strategies, for requests made informally without mentioning the ADA. A variety of individual attributes capable of discerning when participants chose one strategy over another were observed; these included self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, negative affect, and an array of situational and personal attributes. Implications for research and practice were discussed.