The core curriculum at the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) currently includes a doctoring session on disability. This session is led by Dr. Sandra Hearn, an assistant professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Michigan Medicine, and includes a didactic lecture on disability in medicine and an interactive panel of patients with disabilities who receive healthcare at Michigan Medicine. She published an article on this session in the Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources in 2020.

More recently, a Disability Health Elective for 3rd- and 4th-year medical students was started at UMMS by Dr. Michael McKee and Dr. Oluwaferanmi Okanlami. This course provides students with the opportunity to work with multiple healthcare providers who specialize in caring for patients with various types of disabilities. Medical student lead, Allyse Zondlak, wrote a blog post about her journey in disability health and contributions to the elective.

In Fall 2021, an American Sign Language (ASL) Elective for Medical Students was added to the curriculum for first-year medical students to learn basic ASL and have exposure to Deaf culture and healthcare access for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing population. This course was coordinated by faculty lead Dr. Michael McKee, student lead Kate Panzer, and instructor Julia Shields. Please find more information about the course from Kate Panzer's blog post.

Our most recent contribution to disability health in the UMMS curriculum was a collaboration with the pre-existing Clinical Reasoning Elective (CRE). This established elective pairs first-year medical students with Michigan Medicine physicians to receive early exposure to obtaining a patient history and physical and presenting their assessment and plan. This collaboration enabled us to include multiple disability-friendly providers in the physician list and allowed students to self-select these providers for additional experience working with patients with disabilities. The outcomes of this elective have been published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2018.

Our future plans include revamping disability health in the UMMS curriculum (particularly in the Doctoring session); surveying medical students' attitudes, perceived knowledge, and comfort with patients with disabilities; and creating a Standardized Patient Program where students take a history and perform a physical exam with patients with disabilities.

Disability Connect is a near-peer mentoring program for medical students with disabilities and chronic illnesses at University of Michigan. This program pairs medical students with disabilities and chronic illnesses with near-peer student mentors who can help them navigate their journey through medical school. Students can sign up to be a mentee for advice on accessing accommodations, anticipating potential challenges, navigating the academic, clinical, and social journey of medical school, etc. Additionally, students can be a mentor to share the insight they've gained and provide support for students who may have similar lived experiences throughout medical school.

Voluntary & Confidential: This program is completely voluntary, and you do not have to be registered with the Services for Students with Disabilities or UMMS Learning Specialist, JT Sangsland, to participate. Confidentiality is very important to us. The information you share is stored in a secure database only accessible by the student coordinators in order to make mentor/mentee pairs.

Please contact Bryan Aaron (bryaaron@umich.edu) or Max Sievers (sieversm@umich.edu) if you have any questions about Disability Connect!

Our Director of Community Building is responsible for organizing events that bring MSDHA students and supporters together. In 2021-2022, we hosted a movie screening of CODA, a potluck gathering, a book club, and admissions dinner to meet prospective students. We are committed to creating a space for students with disabilities and their allies to come together and build community and look forward to more events in the future!

Throughout the year, we organize Lunch Talks with physicians with disabilities and chronic illnesses to learn from their perspectives and journeys through medicine. You can find previous events under our Events tab.

We work closely with the UMMS admissions team to connect with prospective students. When students are offered an interview at UMMS, they also receive a survey through which they can indicate an interest in MSDHA. Those students will then be connected with the MSDHA leadership team to meet if interested. Additionally, MSDHA participates in interview days to provide additional opportunities for students to learn about our organization and what support / initiatives are available for students with disabilities and our allies. If you would like to connect with a current MSDHA executive board member, we would love to meet with you! Please email msdha-leadership@umich.edu to schedule a time to meet.

DACHP is an interprofessional group of health science students at the University of Michigan who are passionate about the inclusion of disability within the health system. All students from any UM school are welcome to join. To learn more, please see our Affiliations tab.

MSDCI is a national group of medical students from institutions across the U.S. who lead projects and initiatives to further the inclusion of disability in medicine. MSDHA is a chapter of this national organization and remains involved in their leadership. To learn more, please visit the MSDCI website or our Affiliations tab.

Medical students at the University of Michigan host an annual Diversity in Medicine Conference, which aims to unite health professions students and faculty from across the country to share the work they are doing to increase diversity in medicine. MSDHA participated in the conference in 2022 by presenting several posters and contributing to a diversity pipeline mixer.