An article, “Deafness Among Physicians and Trainees: A National Survey“, in the February 2013 issue of Academic Medicine, gives insights to how doctors with hearing issues access their training and get to work in the mainstream.
Read: Are deaf/hoh physicians getting needed supports?
Amplified stethoscopes (89%) were the most frequent accommodation, with hearing-devices/FM (32%), realtime captions (21%), sign language (21%) and oral interpreting (14%) in the mix, while 56% used amplified phones.
Study co-author Philip Zazove, professor and the George A. Dean, M.D. Chair of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan, said:
This study highlights a little understood but clearly growing group of physicians who are demonstrating that hearing loss doesn’t keep them from being a physician. These doctors connect with [deaf/hoh] patients in a way that hearing physicians can’t.
Intending medical students can research the UKHPHL website (UK Health Professionals With Hearing Loss), the US-based AMPHL site (Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Loss), or the sign-based DeafMD.org.
Around the world, students with hearing issues are training to be speech-language teachers, audiologists and ENT surgeons – and why not?
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