Deaf in the healthcare field

There are two Deaf news I'll be keeping a closer eye on.

The first is about a Deaf woman who filed a lawsuit against her school in Missouri after they kicked her out for being deaf. The school's interim president said:

 “For example, nurses are required to use their judgment when listening to certain patient sounds, and use of an interpreter to interpret these sounds is not appropriate and is unsafe in our opinion,” Ratliff said. “Student nurses are involved in patient care during the clinical portion of the nursing program, and patient safety is always our No. 1 priority.”

The student won the lawsuit, but is no longer seeking a nursing career. I'll pay close attention to my own academic and professional development as I approach the clinical stages. I am testing out an electronic stethoscope that may work with my Cochlear Implant, but that is not definite. What will happen to me if I am unable to use a stethoscope? I understand my own limits -- I will never work in an emergency setting. But does that limit on emergency rooms mean I shouldn't be allowed to be a health care professional? That's a narrow view about nurses and physicians if they're categorized only on stethoscope listening abilities. There's more to the medical field than a stethoscope.

The second Deaf news regards a medical student. He embarked on a journey through medical school only to be refused Real Time Captioning   -- an accommodation also called CART.  ended up getting CART by paying for it out-of-pocket at astronomical costs, but CART is not an accommodation that can follow you into the clinical setting. He won't finish his medical program until the trial is resolved. He is fighting to have assistance in the clinical setting, which funny enough, he could easily get if he were practicing medicine post-med school!

In both cases, it's unfortunate the health care field is out two potential professionals who could have enriched the world as a nurse and a physician. Unfortunately, those two are not alone in being pushed out of the higher-education careers. Educating deaf people is expensive, but educating us and getting us on equal footing during the college years means we'll end up with self-supporting careers and the ability to give back to communities and to the colleges that didn't protest our accommodation requests.

Colleges love alumni who donate money, but if their deaf students must fight for equal access, the deaf students may end up graduating anyway and the school will never see a dime of future donations. The schools are in a lose-lose situation when they fight against equal access. The public is in a lose-lose situation as well because if deaf people don't get communication accessibility to higher education, and they drop out of college, what's going to happen? They are more likely to work minimum wage jobs and at the same time they're eligible for public assistance while working that job! Imagine how much harder it'd be for someone without any competitive skills AND they're deaf to find any available job. It's pretty difficult to get past the interview stage of the hiring process because the interviewer won't stop focusing on our deafness. We are treated as too complicated to deal with instead of being seen as potentially amazing and reliable employees. But when you have higher-education or other competitive/educational/skill advantages, being deaf matters a little bit less.

It bothers me when I learn about deaf/hoh people who have to fight for higher education. I've had my own issues with previous colleges, but I believe my nursing school will do a fantastic job supporting not only my own development, but the rest of my (hearing) class as well.

On a final note, I had my first day of nursing school. So it's only fitting I learned about both of these stories today.