How Do I Ask About Your Disability? An Examination of Interpersonal Communication Processes Between Medical Students and Patients with Disabilities

Medical student behaviors were examined through digital recordings of interpersonal skills communication training framed around a brief curriculum on disability within a family medicine clerkship. This analysis focuses on interpersonal communication processes and ways medical students ask standardized patient educators about visually apparent disability (N=142). Primary themes of asking about or avoiding disability were identified with regard to language and nonverbal communication in how medical students asked and whether they integrated chronic disability with new musculoskeletal pain complaints. Secondary themes related to timing and communication further contextualized the primary themes. Seventy-four percent of students asked about the disability. Analysis of feedback sessions immediately following the interactions revealed that more than half the students who did not ask about disability spontaneously recognized that they avoided disability language. Results suggest that some ways of asking about disability may inhibit patient disclosure and restrict relationship building. In particular, asking about disability, but then avoiding integrating disability disclosure into the treatment plan, or responding to disability-related disclosure with overly positive, infantilizing-type communication, may pose more difficult dilemmas than never asking about the disability. On the contrary, students who ignored disability altogether often also recognized they missed disability cues, thus providing a learning experience of considerable value. Underlying student attitudes and possibilities for integrating biomedical concerns with social-psychological impacts of disability are addressed.