CHES Presentation Accessible

In October 2021, AcTinSite presented at the 2021 CHES Celebration of Scholarship Learning Objectives. The Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia hosted this conference. Below you will find the abstract and PowerPoint presentation for the conference proceedings.Although the number of students with disabilities in health professions is increasing, barriers in clinical/placement learning persist. The interdisciplinary AcTinSite team – bringing together perspectives from design, geography, occupational science, nursing, critical disability studies, knowledge mobilization, and more – set out to create a comprehensive resource that might inform access in clinical placements for students with disabilities. As part of the process to understand factors that the AcTinSite resource(s) may need to address, in-depth interviews were conducted. Twentynine participants – 4 placement coordinators, 8 placement supervisors, 6 access professionals, 4 leaders in education (e.g. heads/Deans), 3 leaders in healthcare (e.g. clinical educators), 4 students with disabilities – from two hospitals and two universities participated. Transcripts were analyzed using a collaborative thematic approach. The AcTinSite team found that clinical and academic educators and learners engage in various forms of unrecognized labour to create access: putting in extra time, doing emotional labour, engaging in relational work, and navigating complexities. This labour is unrecognized and optional, and therefore its result – access – is inequitably distributed. We discuss what aspects of this unrecognized labour should be re-valued and recognized by our institutions as important aspects of teaching/learning, and which aspects perhaps should not need to happen. Educators and institutions need to know how access is created in placement education in order to promote diversity within our professions.SSHRC Insight gran