Health and Disability

The medical model of disability in America is one that suggest disability is defined by the diagnosis of medical conditions and is the prevalent model of disability in this nation at this time. In order for a person with disabilities to receive services in America, they must first receive a medical diagnosis from a doctor, along with the paperwork from that doctor essentially certifying their disability. If a doctor is unable to achieve a diagnosis, the person experiencing a form of disability can find themselves struggling to receive services.

Health; therefore, has become so tied to the concept of disability in America that the two are seemingly inseparable. One of the effects of the medical model of disability is the very focus on medical aspects of disability with a resulting lack of focus on social aspects. In a society that places so much of its attention on the diagnosis of disabilities, with so little focus on the social aspects of disabilities, the results are an all too often failure to recognize people with disabilities as a culture.

America and Americans have, for generations on end, been presented with images of health and vitality as being optimal. Ken and Barbie dolls, Body Builders, Prize Fighters, Able-Bodied Athletes, Swim Suit Models, Diet Program upon Diet Program – there has been an endless stream of youth, vitality, health, strength, and fitness imagery and promotion presented to every single American citizen across generations of time. Women and men dye their hair, they diet to fit into bathing suits and clothing, they wear makeup to present themselves as being younger, fitter, and more appealing, they go to gyms to stay physically fit and more.

Disease and disability are portrayed as undesirable, frightening, and horrible. They are presented as disastrous life events. For generations, people in America have been taught to pity people with disabilities through telethons such as the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. Americans have been taught that people with disabilities are the subjects of charity. Americans have been taught that people with disabilities are ill, that we are sickly, that we need medical treatment.

Entire industries exist in America to serve the medical needs of people with disabilities. Durable medical goods are produced in a stunning variety, by numerous corporations, to meet the medical needs of people with disabilities. Pharmaceutical industries in America thrive on the backs of people with disabilities and our medical diagnosis. The federal government has massive programs, such as those provided by the Social Security Administration, to serve people with disabilities; ones that would not exist in relation to people with disabilities without the diagnosis from doctors that accompany us.

I ask you – where are the massive industries in relation to the social aspects of disability and culture? Where are the massive federal government programs in relation to these same social aspects of disability and culture? Why, in America, does the medical model of disability persist when People with Disabilities comprise this nation's largest minority population? Other minority populations in America are viewed from a social model perspective, yet People with Disabilities are not.

Everyone in America, despite social identification, experiences health issues. It is unreasonable to isolate People with Disabilities through the use of a medical model of disability. The use of a medical model of disabilities is prejudicial, biased, and extremely bigoted. As a person who experiences forms of disabilities I am far more than just the disabilities I experience. To somehow suggest that the disabilities I experience comprise the entirety of who I am is ignorant – as ignorant as the medical model of disability.

America, it is well past time that you grew up and realized a social model of disability is long past overdue. America, you cannot continue to deny People with Disabilities in Our Nation equal rights based upon the notion that we are somehow defined by our health and a diagnosis from a doctor. America, People with Disabilities are not citizens to be pitied; neither are we the subjects of a charity model or perceptions. America – we are citizens, just like everyone else.