Dr. Messman contributes to special edition of AAMC journal – School of Medicine News

A Wayne State University School of Medicine faculty leader co-wrote two articles included in a special edition of Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Anne Messman, M.D., MHPE, FACEP, associate dean of Graduate Medical Education and designated institutional official for the school of medicine, helped author the pieces for the “Landscape of Disability Inclusion in Medical Education,” edition of the journal. The entire journal is devoted to disability in medical education.

In “Preparing to Thrive: Supporting Learners With Disabilities Through the Undergraduate-to-Graduate Medical Education Transition,” Dr. Messman and her co-authors examine factors that may ease the transition from undergraduate to graduate medical education for medical students with disabilities. They identify four key areas to further support such students in the transition process, disability disclosure, selecting a specialty, selecting a program and requesting and utilizing accommodations in graduate medical education.

“Given the complexity of the transition period, the community of UME and GME professionals must continue strategizing and collaborating to identify further ways to support this group of learners,” Dr. Messman and her colleagues wrote from their personal experience. “Key next steps include addressing negative disability attitudes and bias, evaluating and improving current accommodations processes, exploring strategies to improve accessibility and sharing case studies demonstrating how disabled learners have been supported. Implementing our recommendations across each phase of the UME-to-GME transition can help ensure a disabled learner has the support and resources they need, ease the challenges of this process and, ultimately, prepare a learner to not only survive the transition but also thrive.”

Dr. Messman, who also serves as professor of Emergency Medicine and vice chair of Education in that department, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 16. After years of hiding her disability, explaining that her limp was from a sports injury, she now identifies openly as a person with a disability, and revealed her condition to the doctors, residents and physicians-in-training she encounters daily. She now advocates for physicians and medical students who identify as disabled.

The second article, “Reframing Disability: The Role of Professional Organizations in Fostering Inclusion for Disabled Physicians,” offers recommendations medical schools and health care facilities should take to create inclusive environments that welcome and support physicians and students with disabilities.

“To do so will require reframing the concept of disability, shifting toward a socioecological understanding of what enables or limits an individual’s ability to practice medicine, and recognizing that every student and physician benefits when medical education is designed to support a diverse range of learners,” the commentary authors write. “Eliminating structural ableism as it manifests in national and organizational policies and practices similarly holds promise for improving the diversity, vitality and sustainability of the health care workforce. … Our organizations can play catalytic roles in changing the narratives surrounding people with disabilities in medicine and reshaping the policies and practices that foster their inclusion and success within the physician workforce. As we continue to work to eliminate ableism in medicine and medical education, we must simultaneously strive to transform the narratives and the structures that continue to create barriers to developing and sustaining a thriving physician workforce.”