How can we eliminate the medical model definition of disability?
Disability itself is not a medical problem. Its cause may be and some complications are medical issues, but the disability itself is not. It just is. Yet, with this model of disability, the person with a disability is viewed as broken and in need of repair. That results in a low expectation of what the person with a disability can do. How does that expectation affect the person trying to apply for a job, especially in the healthcare system?
Every time I speak with hospitals about hiring persons with disabilities, someone asks the question, “This is a hospital. What can we hire persons with disabilities to do here?”
Since I know physicians, lawyers, professors, chemists, writers, database administrators, and people in all sorts of professions who have disabilities, this question makes me shake my head. The reality is that this is the wrong question for a hospital or any other employer to ask. After all, when you focus on the disability, you are less inclined to hire someone.
Disability is a social construct. The medical definition just doesn’t fit when talking about employment. Look at the job skills that you need to hire and then hire a person who has these skills.
Focusing on what the abilities are will help you raise your expectations. Accommodating the disability then becomes a simple matter of providing the employee with the necessary tools to do his or her job.
So, raise your expectations, hire the ability and accommodate the disability.
Annette Bourbonniere
401-846-1960
Fax: 401-846-1944
Twitter: @AccessInclude
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