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🌨️ Winter Newsletter Updates! 🧊

February 2, 2026


A Note From Our Co-Directors


Dear friends and colleagues,


We are writing at a moment that feels heavy for many of us. The winter storms are impacting our daily lives on top of the ever present threats to so many of our families and friends. Indeed, across the country civil rights and diversity efforts are being questioned, restricted, or reframed in ways that can feel destabilizing—especially for those whose work, identities, and values are rooted in access, equity, and inclusion. We want to be clear and transparent with our community: this moment does not change our commitment. If anything, it sharpens it.


We remain deeply dedicated to advancing anti-oppression work


Over the past several months, our teams have been working—often quietly but persistently—on new and updated resources focused on disability, access, and inclusion across medical, nursing, and other health professions education. This includes recent and upcoming webinars, expanded toolkits, and a growing library of recorded sessions designed to offer practical guidance for educators, program leaders, and learners navigating rapidly changing environments.


Behind the scenes, we are thinking carefully about what institutions, educators, learners, and leaders need most right now—and how to deliver support that is both meaningful and usable. We hope you’ll take time to engage with these resources, whether live or on-demand, and share them with colleagues who may benefit.

And this is where you come in.


We want to hear directly from you. What do you need most right now? What barriers are you running into? Where are you feeling stuck, unsupported, or uncertain—and where are you seeing momentum that could be amplified? Your input helps ensure that our work reflects real needs rather than assumptions. You can reach us at docswithdisabilitiesinitiative@gmail.com.


Thank you for staying engaged, for showing up for one another, and for continuing this work even when the path feels steeper than it should. We are grateful to be in this community with you—and we are very much in this together.


With appreciation and resolve,

Lisa Meeks and Justin Bullock


Exciting Partnerships


Dr. Lisa Meeks Heads to Vienna for Global Dialogue on Disability Inclusion in Medical Training


This February, Dr. Lisa Meeks will travel to Vienna to engage with global leaders advancing disability inclusion. She has been invited by the Zero Project to participate in #ZeroCon26, an international convening focused on accelerating access and inclusion worldwide. While in Vienna, she will also join a small, invited international delegation dedicated to advancing disability inclusion in medical training.


Dr. Meeks’ invitation reflects the growing international reach of the Docs With Disabilities Initiative and the broader momentum toward more accessible, equitable health professions training environments.


📣 ACGME & Docs With Disabilities Initiative Launch the Disability Resource Hub


We’re thrilled to celebrate the launch of the Disability Resource Hub, a new collaborative resource developed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the Docs With Disabilities Initiative, with support from a Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Catalyst Award for Transformation in Graduate Medical Education!


📚 The Hub equips educators, learners, and programs with practical tools and guidance to support learners with disabilities as they transition from undergraduate medical education (UME) through residency and fellowship (GME). Key resources include:


  • UME-to-GME Transition Toolkit

  • Disability Policy Toolkit

  • Case studies highlighting real-world accommodation practices

  • Publications and reports to inform inclusive practices across medical education


📚 Access this free, centralized collection of tools and resources through Learn at ACGME, the ACGME’s digital learning platform. 🔑 A free Learn at ACGME account is required.


🔗 Explore the Disability Resource Hub: https://bit.ly/DisabilityResourceHUB_GME


Upcoming Events - Register NOW!


As always, all of our events will be recorded and made available on our YouTube page.


Student Voices: Medical Student Perspectives on the Accommodations Guide


📅 February 3, 2026 | 4:30–5:30 PM PT · 7:30–8:30 PM ET


Hosted by: Disability in Medicine Mutual Mentorship Program (DM3P), Docs With Disabilities Initiative (DWDI), Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness (MSDCI), and Stanford Medicine Alliance for Disability Inclusion and Equity (SMADIE)


Moderator: Suchita Rastogi, PhD


Panelists:

Peppar Cyr, MD

Nora Newcomb, MD

Zak Khaleel, MD


Description

Please join us for the fourth Accommodations Guide Workshop webinar, Student Voices: Medical Student Perspectives on the Accommodations Guide. This session highlights the recently published Guide to Clinical Accommodations in Undergraduate Medical Education, centering the voices of residents who road-tested the guide’s language while they were clinical-phase medical students.


Panelists will discuss the strengths and limitations of the guide, its utility for undergraduate medical learners, and how direct learner feedback strengthened the language included in the final product. The conversation will also explore the accommodations process from the perspective of clinical-phase medical students and underscore the importance of centering the voices of learners with disabilities in efforts to improve systems of support in medical education. The session will conclude with a moderated Q&A.


Building Effective Disability Policy in GME: Introducing the Disability Policy Toolkit 


📅 February 25 | 4:00 PM ET


Hosted by: DWDI and the ACGME


Moderator: Morgan Passiment, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education


Panelists:

Jessica Bienstock, MD

Maggie Salinger, MD

Kelly Shaw, PsyD

Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA


Description

Clear, accessible, and consistently applied disability policy is essential to advancing inclusion in graduate medical education (GME). While ACGME Institutional Requirement 4.9.d. requires GME programs to maintain a disability policy, many institutions lack practical guidance for developing, implementing, and sustaining policies that are both compliant and meaningful in practice.


This webinar introduces the Disability Policy Toolkit, developed as part of the Disability Resource Hub through a collaboration between the Docs With Disabilities Initiative and the ACGME, with support from a Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Catalyst Grant. Designed as a practical, actionable resource, the Toolkit helps institutions create, review, and operationalize disability-related policies that align with legal standards, educational priorities, and the lived experiences of learners.


Panelists representing institutional leadership, policy development, and policy users will discuss how disability policy shapes disclosure, access to support, and trust within educational systems. Participants will be guided through the Toolkit’s core components, including model policy language, policy development processes, policy dissemination, and disability data collection in GME. The session will conclude with a moderated Q&A.


Who Should Attend

This session is designed for individuals involved in developing, implementing, or applying disability policy in GME, including:Institutional leaders; designated institutional officials (DIOs); deans of students; disability resource professionals (DRPs); clinical faculty and educators; program directors and associate or assistant program directors; and GME administrators and coordinators.


Clinical Accommodations in Practice: Building Codified Processes Through Community 


🗓 March 5, 2026 | 12:00 PM ET ⏱ 90-minute interactive workshop

🔗 Register now with an AAMC Account https://aamc.elevate.commpartners.com/p/260305_Accommodations 


Hosted by: DWDI and the AAMC


Moderator: Amy Addams, AAMC


Panelists:

Lauren Cobbs, MD

Christine Low, MSW, LCSW-R

Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA


Building on the Clinical Accommodations Guide — Implementation & Infrastructure webinar, this interactive workshop brings institutions together to strengthen the core processes that support effective clinical accommodations in undergraduate medical education.


Rather than offering a single prescriptive model, the session recognizes the diversity of clinical training environments and highlights practical examples from academic health systems and community-based sites. Participants will explore six foundational domains, including accommodation implementation, communication and information flow, responsibility across stakeholders, check-back systems, appeals processes, and high-stakes requests such as OSCEs and Step exams.


Designed as a true working session, participants will reflect on their own practices, share challenges, and learn from peer institutions. Dedicated time will support schools in beginning or refining codified clinical accommodations processes—because no one should have to build these systems alone.


Effective Transitions: Introducing the UME to GME Transition Toolkit


📅 March 31, 2026 | 4:00 PM ET


Hosted by: DWDI and the ACGME


Moderator

Morgan Passiment, ACGME


Panelists

Jay Behel, PhD

Nalinda Charnsangavej, MD

Ellen Kaplan, MEd

Laventrice Ridgeway, EdD, LPC, ACS, NCC

Zoie C. Sheets, MD, MPH


The transition from undergraduate to graduate medical education is a pivotal moment for all learners — and one that presents unique, often under-addressed challenges for medical students with disabilities. During this transition, disabled learners frequently encounter unclear policies, stigma, and limited guidance around disclosure, access to resources, and workplace accommodations.


This webinar introduces the newly launched UME-to-GME Transition Toolkit, developed as part of the Disability Resource Hub, a collaboration between Docs With Disabilities Initiative and the ACGME, supported by a Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Catalyst Grant. Designed to support both institutions and learners, the toolkit offers disability-informed guidance to improve transparency, consistency, and support during the transition to residency.


Panelists will walk through a fictional case to demonstrate the Toolkit’s core components, including the Guide for Institutions and Guide for Learners, and highlight practical resources such as sample emails, suggested interview language, website content, and guidance for disclosure and post-Match communication.


🎓 Who should attend: Institutional leaders; deans of students; clinical faculty; and disability resource professionals seeking practical, actionable tools to better support disabled learners during the UME-to-GME transition.


The session will conclude with a moderated Q&A, offering participants the opportunity to engage with panelists and explore how the Toolkit can be applied within their own institutional contexts.


In Case you Missed It: Recordings Now Available!


📽️ Watch the Recording: ACGME/DWDI Disability Resource Hub — Official Launch

The transition from undergraduate medical education (UME) into residency and fellowship is a critical—and often vulnerable—period for learners with disabilities. This recorded launch event introduces the ACGME–Docs with Disabilities Disability Resource Hub, a centralized, open-access platform designed to advance disability inclusion across the UME–GME continuum.


📽️ Watch the Recording:

Clinical Accommodations Guide: Implementation and Infrastructure explores how medical education programs can bridge the gap between clinical accommodation decision-making and real-world implementation, with a focus on the infrastructure needed to make accommodations work in practice.


📽️ Watch the Recording: DREAM Research Rounds — Food Insecurity Among Medical Students

🍽️ Food insecurity is an often-hidden barrier in medical education—one that disproportionately affects students from marginalized identities and is frequently normalized through long-standing cultural narratives in training. In this recorded DREAM Research Rounds session, Bassel Shanab explores what food insecurity looks like in medical education, who is most affected, why it persists, and how institutions can move beyond helping students survive to supporting them in truly thriving.


🧠 The conversation challenges common assumptions about “rites of passage” in medical training and invites educators and leaders to critically examine structural contributors to food insecurity—and what can be done to address them.


📚 Suggested readings referenced in the session: 




📣 New Publications!


📘 “Affects of ableism in medical education: happiness, resignation, and the disabled killjoy."


🧠 This paper examines how emotions shape disabled medical students’ understandings of disability, agency, and responsibility within an ableist medical education system. Drawing on affect theory and critical disability theory, the authors analyze 674 open-text responses from disabled medical students who participated in the 2019 and 2020 AAMC Year Two Questionnaire. Using reflexive thematic analysis, the study maps how specific affects circulate through students’ narratives and how these emotions are tied to political meaning-making and action.


😊😤😔 The analysis identifies three dominant affects—happiness, frustration, and resignation—that structure how students interpret institutional responses to disability. Happiness often accompanied gratitude for accommodations framed as personal concessions rather than institutional obligations, reinforcing the internalization of responsibility for access offering new insight into disability non-disclosure in medical education.



📘 “The Call Is Coming from Inside the House: Racism and Ableism in U.S. Medical Education” Published in Teaching and Learning in Medicine."


🧠 This powerful article centers the voices of racially marginalized disabled medical students, whose experiences in medical education are framed through horror tropes to illuminate how racism and ableism intertwine, normalize harm, and persist through everyday institutional practices—often unnoticed and unchallenged.


🕯️ The discomfort this framing may evoke is intentional. Rather than offering tidy solutions, the authors invite educators, leaders, and institutions to sit with the unease, recognize their proximity to these systems, and reflect on their own roles within them.



📘 “The Disability Policy Toolkit: Resource Development and Applications Within Graduate Medical Education”Published in Journal of Graduate Medical Education


🧭 As the number of residents with disabilities continues to grow, this article addresses a critical gap in graduate medical education: the absence of clear, accessible, and consistently implemented disability policies. The authors outline the development of the Disability Policy Toolkit, a practical, evidence-informed resource designed to help institutions and residency programs strengthen disclosure, accommodation, and communication processes.


🛠️ Developed through a national collaboration between Docs With Disabilities Initiative and the ACGME, the toolkit centers lived experience, regulatory guidance, and real-world application. The article highlights how the toolkit was created, structured, and piloted across diverse institutions, offering concrete examples of policy transformation in action.


🌱 Rather than treating disability policy as a static compliance document, this work reframes policy as an active tool for equity, transparency, and resident well-being—supporting programs in moving from intention to implementation.



Research and Resource Rounds


🎧 Research and Resource Rounds Episode 22: Preparing to Thrive: Supporting Learners With Disabilities Through the Undergraduate-to-Graduate Medical Education Transition


This episode dives into Preparing to Thrive, an Academic Medicine article that offers concrete, actionable strategies to support disabled learners during the critical transition from undergraduate to graduate medical education. Featuring insights from a multidisciplinary group of authors, the conversation explores four key areas—disability disclosure, specialty selection, program selection, and requesting accommodations in GME—while highlighting the essential roles of faculty mentors, Disability Resource Professionals (DRPs), UME institutions, GME programs, and accrediting bodies in creating environments where disabled learners can truly thrive.



💬 Keep the Momentum Going


 Thanks to you, activity across the Docs With Disabilities Initiative keeps climbing—more visits, more downloads, more conversations. We love seeing this community grow.

Here are easy ways to stay connected and amplify the work:


  • Share this issue with a colleague or on a listserv.

  • Join upcoming DREAM Research Rounds and webinars to learn and exchange ideas.

  • Follow DWDI on social for fresh resources, research updates, and ways to engage.


Every share, RSVP, and follow expands the circle. Thanks for championing accessibility and inclusion in health professions education.



For any questions reach out to us at docswithdisabilitiesinitiative@gmail.com.

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