Episode 129: Disclosure Part 3: Creating the Conditions for Disclosure
DocsWithDisabilities
Part 3: Creating the Conditions for Disclosure What makes disability disclosure feel safe, supported, and meaningful in healthcare? In the final episode of the Disclosureseries, we move beyond the barriers to examine the conditions that allow disclosure to lead to access, trust, and belonging. Through the perspectives of medical students, physician assistant students, fellows, physicians, and educators, this episode explores how institutional systems, responsive accommodations, inclusive leadership, and everyday acts of advocacy shape disclosure experiences across medical training and...
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Episode 128: The Disclosure Series, Part 2: Medical Culture, Stigma, and What Prevents Disclosure
DocsWithDisabilities
Series Description Disclosure is a three-part podcast series from the Docs with Disabilities Podcast that examines one of the most personal and consequential decisions disabled healthcare providers make: whether, when, and how to disclose a disability. Through the voices of medical students, residents, practicing physicians, psychologists, nurses, researchers, legal scholars, and disability advocates, the series explores disclosure as an ongoing process shaped by identity, institutional culture, ableism, and power. Blending lived experience with research and policy, the series challenges...
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Episode 127: The Disclosure Series, Part 1: The Decision to Disclose
DocsWithDisabilities
Series Description Disclosure is a three-part podcast series from the Docs with Disabilities Podcast that examines one of the most personal and consequential decisions disabled healthcare providers make: whether, when, and how to disclose a disability. Through the voices of medical students, residents, practicing physicians, psychologists, nurses, researchers, legal scholars, and disability advocates, the series explores disclosure as an ongoing process shaped by identity, institutional culture, ableism, and power. Blending lived experience with research and policy, the series challenges...
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Episode 126: Evidence to Action: Live Panel at ICAM 2026
DocsWithDisabilities
From Evidence to Action: Incorporating Disability Inclusion in Medical Training and Practice (ICAM 2026) Session Description The ICAM Series | Recorded Live at the International Congress on Academic Medicine (ICAM) What does it take to move disability inclusion from research and policy into everyday medical training and practice? Recorded live at the International Congress on Academic Medicine (ICAM) in Ottawa, Canada, this special episode of the Docs With Disabilities Podcast brings together an extraordinary panel of physician leaders, educators, and advocates working to transform disability...
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Episode 125: The Call is Coming From Inside the House
DocsWithDisabilities
Interviewees: Neera Jain, PhD — Senior Lecturer, Centre for Medical and Health Sciences Education, Waipapa Taumata Rau, The University of Auckland Hannah Kakara Anderson, PhD, MBA — Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania Abigail (Abby) Konoposky, PhD— Director of Medical Education Research, Department of Psychiatry, Northwell Interviewer: Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA — Professor of Medical Education, The University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago; Host, the Docs With Disabilities Podcast Description: In this...
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Episode 124: Mapping the Landscape of Technical Standards: A Nationwide Review of Medical Schools
DocsWithDisabilities
Interviewees: Carol Haywood, PhD, OTR/L — Assistant Professor, Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Chris Moreland, MD, MPH — Professor of Internal Medicine; Division Chief for Hospital Medicine; Interim Associate Chair for Faculty Affairs and Development, Dell Medical School (Comments made in ASL and voiced through interpreters) Interviewer: Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA — Guest Editor, Academic Medicine Supplement on Disability Inclusion in Undergraduate Medical Education Description: In this episode of Stories Behind the Science, we sit down with Dr....
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Episode 123: Evaluating Disability-Inclusive Content on U.S. Medical Schools’ Websites: A National Study
DocsWithDisabilities
Episode 123: Evaluating Disability-Inclusive Content on U.S. Medical Schools’ Websites—A National Study Interviewees: Ifeoma Ikedionwu, MD — Psychiatry and Internal Medicine Dual Intern, UT Southwestern Dominique Cook — Fourth-Year Medical Student, University of South Florida Interviewer: Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA — Guest Editor, Academic Medicine Supplement on Disability Inclusion in Undergraduate Medical Education Description: In this episode of Stories Behind the Science, Dr. Lisa Meeks sits down with Dr. Ifeoma Ikedionwu and Dominique Cook, co-authors of the first national study...
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Episode 122: Clinical Accommodations in Undergraduate Medical Education
DocsWithDisabilities
Interviewees: Matthew Sullivan, PhD, Assistant Director of Disability Resources, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis Suchita “Suchi” Rastogi, PhD. MPH Candidate, University of Illinois Chicago; CEO, Disability in Medicine Mutual Mentorship Program Interviewer: Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA, Guest Editor, Academic Medicine Supplement on Disability Inclusion in Undergraduate Medical Education Description: In this episode of Stories Behind the Science, Dr. Lisa Meeks talks with Matt Sullivan (Washington University School of Medicine) and Suchita “Suchi” Rastogi (UIC; DM3P) about...
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Episode 121: Promoting Disability Inclusion Through an Expanded Conceptual Framework of the Learning Environment
DocsWithDisabilities
Interviewee: Erick Hung, MD, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Associate Dean for Students, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine Interviewer: Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA, Guest Editor, Academic Medicine Supplement on Disability Inclusion in Undergraduate Medical Education Description: In this episode of Stories Behind the Science, Dr. Lisa Meeks talks with Dr. Erick Hung (UCSF) about his paper, “Promoting Disability Inclusion Through an Expanded Conceptual Framework of the Learning Environment,” part of the Academic Medicine supplement on Disability Inclusion in UME. Their...
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Episode 120: The Intersection of Disability, Race, Ethnicity, and Financial Background on Food Insecurity Among Medical Students
DocsWithDisabilities
Interviewee: Bassel Shanab, BS is a fourth-year medical student at the Yale School of Medicine. Interviewer: Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA, Guest Editor, Academic Medicine Supplement on Disability Inclusion in UME. Description: This episode of Stories Behind the Science sits down with Bassel Shanab (Yale School of Medicine), co-first author of “The Intersection of Disability, Race, Ethnicity, and Financial Background on Food Insecurity Among Medical Students,” part of the Academic Medicine supplement on Disability Inclusion in UME. We move beyond prevalence rates to the lived realities...
info_outlineRana Awdish, MD, FCCP is the author of In Shock, a critically acclaimed, bestselling memoir based on her own illness. A critical care physician and faculty member of Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, she completed her medical degree at Wayne State in 2002 where she was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society, her residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York, and her fellowship training at Henry Ford Hospital where she serves as the current Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program. She also serves as Medical Director of Care Experience for the entire Health System. Dr. Awdish’s mandate as well as her passion is to improve the patient experience across the system and speak on patient advocacy at health care venues nationally.
After suffering a sudden critical illness, herself, she has devoted much of her career to improving empathy through connection and communication. She lectures to physicians, health care leaders and medical schools across the country. Her book has been integrated into the curriculum of medical schools and universities across the US and Europe. She was awarded the Speak-Up Hero award in 2014 for her work establishing a workshop-based program called CLEAR (Connect, Listen, Empathize, Align, Respect), which trains faculty and trainees in relationship-based communication skills utilizing improvisational actors. She was named Henry Ford Hospital’s Critical Care Teacher of the Year in 2016. She was named the National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year by The Schwartz Center as well as Physician of the Year by Press Ganey in 2017. She has been interviewed by The Times, The Telegraph, The BBC, NPR, the Today Show online, MedPage, Health Leaders Media, and Beckers Hospital Review. She has written for Harvard Business Review, the Huffington Post, as well as the New England Journal of Medicine. Her NEJM Perspectives article, A View from the Edge, went viral garnering over 120,000 views and is ranked in the 99th percentile for reach.
Key Words: BIPOC, Physical Disability, Sudden Critical Illness, Miscarriage, Serious Medical Complications, Psychological/ Mental Health, Distress, Emotional Burnout, Depression, Critical Care, Pulmonology, Pulmonary Hypertension, Research