Why Health Professions Need Fordham Students with Health Conditions and Disabilities

Disabilities are defined as health conditions that substantially impair bodily functions. Health professionals exert enormous influence over the lives of people with disabilities by providing health care, and by generating research and information about them that forms the basis for policies and practices that affect their everyday lives. In this 20-minute talk followed by Q&A, Nicholas D. Lawson, M.D., J.D., will explain why the health professions need persons with health conditions and disabilities and need disability studies to make their policies and practices reflect the priorities of those purported to benefit from them. He will describe some of the professions’ existing barriers, recent progress, and invite audience questions and ideas at the end of the talk.

Lawson is a former psychiatry resident, a person with a disability (dyslexia, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder), and a disability advocate who serves as commissioner on the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights. He has written many articles on disability inclusion within the medical and legal professions and is a Georgetown Law scholar who will be teaching disability studies at Fordham for the first time this fall.