I attended a small conference today that was designed to increase discussions that could help bridge the humanities and science. The focus of the discussion was on "disability" and was primarily attended by physicians and faculty who teach the humanities in medical schools. So, for the sociology students who stumble onto this site, you should be familiar with the idea of social construction; that society defines social groups and roles--gender, race, disability--according to a set of shifting criteria. We all participate in reinforcing these categorizations by using them in our own lives, teaching them to our children or students, and, often, through formal (legal) definitions. Disability, it seems, has been largely co-opted by a medical model, or set of criteria. People who deviate (another good sociological term) from the "norm" are disabled. The disability could be mental or physical. The medical model looks at disability as a problem, one that can be fixed (sometimes) or managed. The medical model emphasizes cure, defined as removing the problem. In contrast, sociology views disability as a failure of the environment to adapt to the different needs of those with differences
One of the goals of the discussion is to make physicians more empathetic, to have them look at patients not as disabled, but as people first. However, as one discussant pointed out, we still live in a policy world dominated by the medical model. Insurance, social benefits, and all kinds of things are dependent on one being labeled as disabled by a physician. What good does it do to sensitize physicians if we then ask them to turn around and complete the bureaucratic documentation. Are both parties complicit in the perpetuation of the label?
3 comments:
Hi Chris
Interesting post. I am a medical sociologist who studies these issues, and my response would be that it is not an "either/or" situation. Rather, disibility rights activists need to work on multiple levels, and in all the institutions of social life, from clinics to houses of government.
Chad
I agree that it is not an "either/or." What I found interesting is that the emphasis of this conference was on sensitizing physicians but at the same time talking about how the physicians are needed to certify disability status for insurance, etc. On the one hand we ask them not to view things as "disabling" while on the other asking them to play the game. There was an interesting example from Kenny Fries' book "The History of my Shoes."
This can be a huge issue for people who are Deaf. On the one hand, for some people deafness is a cultural issue and it is not a disablity. On the other hand, obtaining SSI, SSDI, VR, IEP services and the like is dependent on having a "disability" -- I've heard discussion that if people really want to get away from the disability model, they have have to turn down disability-dependent services. "Universal" services, that are widely accessible to people with or without a disability, might work well for something like a work force center, but not with health care and income programs, so it's a dilemna.
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