The requirements to be accepted into DM3P are (1) desire to learn about and combat ableism in healthcare, (2) willingness to respect the virtual meetings as a safe space designed to center the needs of disabled healthcare workers and trainees, and (3) age of legal employment in your jurisdiction. Additionally, while the vast majority of DM3P’s participants identify as disabled, you don’t have to have a disability to join us. 

Many different conditions can count as disability. Examples of disability that are represented among our current DM3P members include but are not limited to…

• Mobility impairments (e.g., quadriplegia, use of mobility aids like walkers and wheelchairs)
• Sensory impairments (e.g., blindness, low vision, deafness, or hard of hearing)
• Chronic illnesses (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, genetic diseases)
• Cognitive and learning disabilities (e.g., ADHD, autism, dyslexia)
• Mental illness (e.g., mood disorders, anxiety disorders, PTSD, adjustment disorder)

The above examples are not all-encompassing. You might identify as a person with a disability even if your condition doesn’t fit the categories in this list. Conversely, you may have one of the above conditions but identify as non-disabled. Both stances are valid and respected by the DM3P community. Again, the way you identify has no bearing on whether you can join the community. 

An ally is someone who actively supports the rights of a minority or marginalized group without being a member of that group. An ally continually looks within to evaluate and unlearn their own biases. They also outwardly challenge behaviors and institutional structures that oppress marginalized groups. 

Allies recognize that because they are not part of the minority they have committed to support, it is not in their place to speak for or over members of that minority. They spread the word about how best to promote inclusion and equity for these communities by promoting the ideas and preferences of its members over their own opinions. They combat oppressive systems using strategies and philosophies expressly endorsed by the community, rather than their own agendas or belief systems. They credit the community with these ideas, rather than claiming them as their own.

Examples of allyship to the disabled health professional community include but are not limited to the following:

1. Educating yourself about the stereotypes and challenges people with disabilities face in and out of the clinical workplace. This includes a commitment to research these issues on your own, to offset the burden on disabled people to educate you.
2. Listening to perspectives of disabled healthcare professionals without negating their lived experiences, should they wish to share their thoughts
3. Evaluating yourself for and unlearning any ableist opinions you may have about people with disabilities in your personal and professional life
4. Challenging inaccurate and pejorative comments about disabled people
5. Acting as an upstander or a supportive bystander when someone is subjected to ableist discrimination in your presence 
6. Educating your colleagues, superiors, juniors, friends, and family members about best practices for disability inclusion in healthcare and the value of instituting these practices 
7. Promoting and consuming the works and perspectives of disabled healthcare professionals
8. Participating in activism at the local, state, and/or national level to advance disability inclusion in and out of healthcare
9. Committing yourself to a career such as disability scholarship or disability law that advances the rights of people with disabilities in and out of healthcare

Mutual mentorship is a type of mentoring style in which both parties in a mentoring relationship are regarded as teachers and as learners at the same time. There is no designated mentor or mentee, and information flows in two directions

DM3P’s model of mutual mentorship is set apart from conventional mutual mentorship because it also incorporates group mentoring practices and social network theory. In our program, participants come together in a group setting to help each other navigate medicine with a disability. Instead of assigning formal mentoring partnerships, this model creates a space where participants can forge their own meaningful relationships with other disabled healthcare professionals, whether they are friendships, mentoring relationships or both.
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DM3P does not formally assign mentor/mentee pairings. Our model of mentoring, mutual mentorship, is nonhierarchical by design. This arrangement offers a venue for individuals to organically establish the relationships that work best for them. This is thought to result in better outcomes than formally assigned mentor/mentee pairings. It also provides participants an opportunity to gain multiple mentors to meet their differing needs.

Of note, participants are most welcome to forge formal mentor/mentee relationships on their own. Though DM3P does not pair its members, we are happy to refer you to participants who have certain knowledge and lived experience that is relevant to your situation. You can also connect to community members with particular types of disability or at particular stages of training in medicine through the private LinkedIn and Discord groups.

DM3P offers two venues for individuals to meet each other:

1. Virtual events, which occur on the third Wednesday of every month. At these virtual events, registered members of DM3P can network during the designated social time, converse in small and large groups during interactive portions, and private message one another through the Zoom chat feature.
2. Online forums. DM3P offers registered members a private LinkedIn group and a private Discord group. The Discord group contains several channels dedicated to individual types of disability and different health professions or stages of training.

Additionally, you are welcome to email info@disabilitymedmentors.org for help contacting members who have certain knowledge and lived experience. DM3P’s leadership is happy to facilitate these connections.

Disclosure is a very personal and difficult choice. There are pros and cons both ways, depending on the circumstances in which you are considering disclosure. 

Generally:  

The greatest benefit to disclosing a disability is that it enables a disabled individual to obtain accommodations. However, some choose not to disclose a disability to avoid being stigmatized by other health professionals. To obtain the benefit of accommodations while avoiding as much stigma as possible, trainees and clinicians are recommended to disclose to the accessibility office or HR department of their institution or place of employment. 

In DM3P: 

You do not have to disclose a disability to participate in DM3P. You can become a registered member, attend virtual events, and post within the private Discord and private LinkedIn groups regardless of your disability status.

When applying for a training program or a job: 

For applicants whose lived disability experiences shaped their decision to enter the health professions, disclosure of disability in the personal statement can strengthen an application by demonstrating true commitment to their chosen field. However, the choice to disclose in a personal statement could also lead to rejection by institutions that are unwilling to accommodate the trainee. To combat this problem, some disabled applicants choose to paint their disabilities as strengths in some way, or else portray their conditions as well-controlled or in remission. Others disclose more openly in order to weed out institutions that would otherwise fail to support them during their training. 

Alternatively, applicants whose disabilities are not physically obvious have the option to disclose a disability later in the application process, or not at all. Many institutions offer mechanisms to confidentially request accommodations during the interview process, such that disability information is not passed on to interviewers or application reviewers. Additionally, it is possible to wait to disclose after acceptance into a training program or job. In this case, it is recommended to disclose disability to an accessibility office or HR department as soon as possible, so that accommodations can be arranged. 

For the monthly Zoom meetings and for 60 minutes of the social time that follows each meeting, we provide CART closed captioning by default. We enable automated captioning for all other social time associated with the virtual events. We can also provide slides of didactic presentations ahead of time and American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation upon request. 

For both the main meeting and the social hours, we allow our participants to freely choose whether or not to turn their cameras on.

Finally, please email us with additional accommodations requests or accessibility concerns at info@disabilitymedmentors.org. Please allow us at least 7 days to meet your needs. If you ask for a more systemic change, it may take us longer, but we will incorporate any accessibility suggestions as soon as we can. 

We ask that you do NOT share save-the-date emails with non-members. Each of DM3P’s save-the-date emails contains a registration link to sign up for an upcoming virtual event. We want to make sure that only members can access the registration link, so that the community remains a safe space where people can feel comfortable sharing their lived experiences in a confidential setting.

This said, we enthusiastically support you spreading the word about our events. It is okay to share the date, time, title, event description, and speaker information for each event, as long as you keep the registration link to yourself.

MSDCI, or Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness, is DM3P’s sister organization. It offers a mentorship program that pairs participants into traditional mentor-mentee dyads. The program is open to premedical students and medical students and operates in 3-month cycles. This program is ideal for disabled premedical and medical students seeking to give or receive guidance tailored to succeeding in undergraduate medical education. For more information, please navigate to MSDCI’s website.

DM3P does not pair its members, and it encourages bidirectional mentoring relationships where each individual acts as both a learner and a teacher. Additionally, the program is open to people from all health professions and all stages of training. Furthermore, it offers monthly educational lectures on how to navigate the health professions with a disability, with lessons that are applicable to a variety of health fields. This program is suitable for people seeking the perspectives of clinicians from all stages of training, individuals who benefit from interaction in small and large groups, and non-MD/DO track clinicians and trainees. For more information about DM3P’s mentorship style, please visit the Mutual Mentorship webpage.