Do Medical Students With Disabilities Face Discrimination?

TOPLINE:

Disability-based discrimination was reported by 12.4% of medical students with disabilities in the US, with the highest rates being reported by those with chronic illnesses and multiple disabilities. Clinical clerkship faculty and residents were frequently cited as sources of discrimination.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analyzed data from the 2024 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Graduation Questionnaire, completed by 80% of graduates, to understand the prevalence and sources of disability-based discrimination among 1800 students with disabilities.
• Disability status was self-reported and categorized as nondisabled, learning disabilities, psychological issues, motor or sensory disabilities, chronic illness, multiple types, and other.
• The questionnaire assessed the sources and frequency of discrimination on the basis of experiences such as being denied opportunities for training, receiving poorer evaluations, and facing offensive remarks related to disabilities.
• Multiple experiences of discrimination were coded as two or more types, such as denied opportunities and offensive remarks.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, 12.4% of students with disabilities reported experiencing discrimination, with those having chronic illnesses, motor or sensory disabilities, and multiple disabilities reporting the highest rates of discrimination (P < .001 for all).
• Clinical clerkship faculty and residents were the most frequently cited sources of discrimination, affecting evaluations (74.8% and 36.5%, respectively) and opportunities (58.9% and 28.9%, respectively).
• The most commonly cited sources of offensive remarks were clinical clerkship faculty (51.6%), residents (30.6%), and students (19.8%).

IN PRACTICE:

“To address these issues, programs should foster an inclusive clinical educational culture, where students are empowered to report discrimination without fear of retaliation, train faculty and residents on disability awareness and inclusive teaching strategies, and learning happens in universally designed settings,” the authors of the study wrote.

“Ensuring that faculty understand the concept and goals of reasonable accommodations is important; resources offered by the AAMC can assist in these efforts. Involving medical students and faculty with disabilities and chronic disease in these efforts is essential and underscores the value of disability representation in medicine,” experts wrote in an invited commentary.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Mytien Nguyen, MS, of the Department of Immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. It was published online on July 28, 2025, in JAMA Internal Medicine.

LIMITATIONS:

The self-reported and cross-sectional data may have led to an underestimation of how often discrimination occurred and uncertainty about the exact causes of discriminatory experiences.

DISCLOSURES:

This work was supported by grants from the Ford Foundation; the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the National Institute of General Medical Sciences; and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. One author reported receiving personal fees from Docs With Disabilities, and two authors reported receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health during the conduct of the study.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.