“From personal journey to professional passion: How lived experience, healthcare simulation, and media unite to advocate for inclusivity in medicine”

Guest Speaker: Jennifer Arnold, MD, MSc 

Meeting Description:

It was on Wednesday, January 17th from 5:30–7:00 PM PST, for the monthly virtual Disability in Medicine Mutual Mentorship Program Meeting. Jennifer shared her personal experience and journey of becoming a neonatologist and healthcare simulationist with a physical disability, having a type of skeletal dysplasia.  Her personal experiences along with her areas of passion in medicine were shared.  As a healthcare simulationist, she explored the potential of simulation to combat barriers to inclusion in medicine, focusing on a framework for how it improved access and decrease ableism. 

SPEAKER BIO 

Jennifer Arnold, MD, MSc, is a board-certified neonatologist.  A native of Florida, Arnold received her undergraduate degrees in biology and psychology from the University of Miami. She completed her medical degree at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2000 and attended a pediatric residency program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 2003. Dr. Arnold was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pittsburgh’s Safar Center for Resuscitative Medicine from 2006 to 2007. During her fellowship in neonatology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Magee-Women’s Hospital, she also pursued a Master of Science in medical education, graduating in 2009.  A founding director of the simulation centers at Texas Children’s Hospital and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, Dr. Arnold has a passion for innovating the application of healthcare simulation as a patient safety tool. Since 2022, she has served as program director for the Immersive Design Systems at Boston Children’s Hospital, the primary pediatric teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School. She also hosts the hospital’s “Boston Children’s Answers Podcast.”  With her husband, Bill Klein, and their two children, Arnold was featured from 2009 to 2019 on TLC’s “The Little Couple,” an unscripted program that provided a window into the family’s personal and professional lives. The show’s popularity helped to break down barriers and educate viewers about people with disabilities. 

Meeting Agenda:

• Intro to the program & Announcements (10 min) 

• Presentation by Dr. Jennifer Arnold (45-50 minutes) 

• Joint Q&A session and large group discussion (25-30 minutes) 

• Conclusion (5 minutes)