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PRINCIPLES REGARDING DISABILITIES AND DISABLED PERSONS

The American Medical Student Association:

1.             ENCOURAGES all health-care professionals and facilities to provide for equal access to quality health care and supportive services for disabled individuals.

2.             OPPOSES all public and private discrimination against persons with a disability including medical school admissions; promotion and graduation; post graduate placement; hospital staff appointment; licensure; availability of health care; and access to social welfare.  The term "disability" is used as defined by the "Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990." (1997)

3.             URGES enactment of more civil rights laws at the local, state and federal levels, which would provide to persons with disability the same protections now provided to others on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or sex. (1997)

4.             ENCOURAGES the study of the problems encountered by the person with a disability when both receiving and providing health care. (1997)

5.             BELIEVES the burden of proof of judgment, reliability, capability, or entitlement to a position for individuals with a disability should not be greater than or different from that placed on other persons.

6.             URGES all medical schools and health-care providers to continually assess their physical, environmental and attitudinal surroundings/approach in order to provide and maintain a barrier-free, as well as discrimination-free, environment for their students, faculty, staff, patients and visitors;

a.             ENCOURAGES that the ‘barrier' be defined by the patient/visitor and/or health-care provider as opposed to solely by the health-care provider; (1997)

b.             URGES the health-care provider to acknowledge the need for auxiliary aids and services, including a sign language interpreter, in communicating with many deaf patients.  Therefore, the provider is encouraged to seek out and pay for a qualified and appropriately certified sign language interpreter in such instances that the patient or the physician feels it would improve communication. (1997)

7.             ENCOURAGES health-care providers, at minimum, to acknowledge the deaf community's cultural (i.e., non-disability, nonpathological) perspective on deafness. (1997)

8.             ENCOURAGES healthcare providers to eliminate the words deaf-mute, deaf and dumb and hearing-impaired from their vocabularies, and instead use the patient's preferred terminology. (1997)

a.             ENCOURAGES health-care providers to continually check with themselves and their patients, and make necessary modifications, to ensure that patients receive equal treatment and accessible and effective communication, regardless of their degree of deafness. (1997)

9.             In regard to treatment of disabled infants:

a.             SUPPORTS the Principles of Treatment of Disabled Infants developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics; (1985)

b.             OPPOSES federal and state regulations and/or legislation which would impose a governmental or uninvolved third party role in the decision-making process as it relates to the care of the severely ill infant when the infant’s best interest is not clearly defined (as outlined in the President’s Commission Report on Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment); (1985)

c.             ENCOURAGES the establishment of hospital multidisciplinary ethics committees to review the decision-making process, to assist in conflicts between physicians and parents and to assist the parents as they decide about the care of their infant when the infant’s best interest is not clearly defined (as outlined in the President’s Commission Report on Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment); (1985)

d.             ENCOURAGES hospitals to establish explicit policies on decision-making procedures, based on the recommendations of the President’s Commission Report on Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment, to facilitate decisions regarding the care and best interest of infants requiring life-sustaining treatments. (1985)

10.           In regards to treatment of persons with mental retardation:

a.             RECOGNIZES that compared with other populations, adults, adolescents, and children with mental retardation experience poorer health and more difficulty in finding, getting to, and paying for appropriate health care. (2004)

b.             ENCOURAGES that measures be taken by the healthcare community to eliminate the health disparity among individuals with mental retardation. (2004)

c.                    ENCOURAGES the integration of didactic and clinical training in the health care of individuals with mental retardation into the basic and specialized education and training of medical students. (2004)