REHAB 566A: Disability and Health: Tensions, Intersections, and Future Opportunities (SLN: 14402)
Meets online, W 12:30-1:50, 1cr, CR/NC
Course instructors: Heather Feldner, PT, PhD, PCS; Silas James, MPA
Course Description
The goal for this online, one credit course is to use a disability studies framework to understand and interrogate disability and health within historical and contemporary healthcare practice and lay communities. Participants in this course will engage in critical analysis of multiple conceptualizations of disability and how tensions between various understandings of disability influence healthcare delivery, health professions education, and dominant social discourses of health and wellness. Systemic ableism and barriers to healthcare for disabled people will be addressed, and participants will consider future opportunities to promote health and access to healthcare services for disabled people while simultaneously working to counteract these issues. Course content will draw heavily from personal narratives and lived experiences of disabled people and their families, historical documents, and contemporary media.
Plain Language Course Description
The goal for this class is to work with students on learning and talking about different ways of thinking about disability and health in places like doctor’s offices or hospitals and in the community. People who take this class will think hard about their own beliefs about disability and health. They will also talk about how beliefs about disability may cause doctors, nurses, or therapists to think or act differently toward people with disabilities. Sometimes, it is hard for people with disabilities to get medical care because the equipment isn’t made for them, or it is hard to get a ride to go see a doctor, or doctors don’t listen as well as they should about what they need. Students in this class will also think about how to make some of these things better, as partners to people with disabilities. We will use videos and books that include people with disabilities and their families talking about what they like and don’t like about going to see a doctor, nurse, or therapist. We will also talk about the history of how people with disabilities are treated in this country. Finally, we will talk about how to treat people with disabilities better so they can always do the things they want, go to the places they want, and be with the people they want. The course will meet online once a week for an hour and a half, for 9 weeks.
