The Emergence of Disability in Health Sciences Podcasts

The Emergence of Disability in Health Sciences Podcasts

A plethora of podcasts covering disability in medicine from many angles emerged since the late 2010s, corresponding with the increasing profile of disabled doctors and issues of inclusivity in medicine broadly.

The Docs With Disabilities podcast was created by Lisa Meeks and collaborators after success of a 2018 hashtag campaign, also started by Meeks, with the same moniker, #DocsWithDisabilities. Docs With Disabilities, launched in July 2019, features interviews with disabled healthcare professionals and students that focus on these individuals’ experiences in medicine – successes, failures, recommendations for other people with disabilities in the health sciences (Docs With Disabilities Podcast, 2019; Panzer et al., 2020) . Meeks and colleagues describe their podcast as “asynchronous mentoring” (Panzer et al., 2020).

Other podcasts that concentrate on the intersection of disability, medicine, and health sciences include:

• Able Medics Podcast, hosted by Ioanna Maraki is a UK-based podcast similar to Docs with Disabilities and started at the same time in mid-2019 (Maraki, 2019).

• Disability Visibility, hosted by Alice Wong launched in 2017 (Wong, 2017).

• Included: The Disability Equity Podcast, hosted by Dr. Bonnielin Swenor and Dr. Nicholas Reed from Johns Hopkins University’s Disability Health Research Center started (Swenor & Reed, n.d.).

• Both Sides of the Stethoscope is hosted by Dr. Alin and Dr. Colby Salerno and began in 2021 (Gragossian & Salerno, n.d.).

Collectively, these podcasts—which boast a varied, extensive listener-ship—serve to form disability community in medicine and educate those in the health sciences about the value and methods of disability inclusion (Martin-Lockhart, 2022; L. Meeks, personal communication, April 7, 2022). However, while these podcasts document improving inclusion of disability content in medical curricula and of disabled doctors, they also enumerate the biases and barriers that it is still common for students and physicians with disabilities to encounter.

Gragossian, A., & Salerno, C. (n.d.). Both Sides of the Stethoscope. Buzzsprout. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.buzzsprout.com/1801906

Maraki, I. (2019, July 17). Able medics podcast. General Medical Council. https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/guidance/welcomed-and-valued/welcomed-and-valued-resources/able-medics-podcast

Martin-Lockhart, Z. (2022). Disabled Doctors Dissertation Fieldwork [manuscript in preparation].

Meeks, L. (2022, April 7). Personal communication [Personal communication].

Panzer, K. V., Maraki, I., Cross, T., & Meeks, L. M. (2020). Podcast possibilities: Asynchronous mentoring for learners with disabilities. Medical Education, 54(5), 448–449. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.14084

Swenor, B., & Reed, N. (n.d.). Included: The Disability Equity Podcast. The Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://disabilityhealth.jhu.edu/included/

Wong, A. (2017, September 13). Ep 1: Activism and the Disability Community. Disability Visibility Project. https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2017/09/13/disability-visibility-podcast-ep-1-activism-and-the-disability-community/