Episode 23. "Political Disclosure: Resisting Ableism in Medical Education."

Citation: Jain, Neera R. "Political Disclosure: Resisting Ableism in Medical Education." Disability & Society 35, no. 3 (2020): 389–412. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2019.1647149.

Description: This episode opens Collection V, Disclosure: the social, political, cultural, and legal dimensions of the choice to disclose disability in the health sciences.

Jain introduces the concept of "political disclosure," a form of disability disclosure oriented towards leveraging disability identity for collective benefit and the destigmatization of disability in medicine–rather than securing accommodations. The article identifies three forms of political disclosure—visibility, upstanding, and activism—and examines the personal, relational, and institutional factors that tilt individuals toward or away from these acts. Grounded in disability studies and social theory, Jain's analysis situates students' disclosure practices within the broader ableist culture of medicine and foregrounds the value of disability epistemologies in medical education. Jain's work is grounded in interviews with disabled medical students and school officials across four medical schools. The episode also highlights resources for disability community-building in medicine that has flourished in the years since the article's publication.

Producer: Zoey Martin Lockhart, Lisa Meeks

Audio Engineer: Jacob Feeman

Transcript: Episode 23 Transcript

Release: 2026

Keywords: Political Disclosure, Disability Disclosure, Disability Epistemologies

Disclaimer: This podcast is a production of the DWDI and the CDHW. The opinions on this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of their respective institutions or organizations. It is released under creative commons attribution, non-commercial, non-derivative license. This episode was produced by Zoey Martin-Lockhart and Lisa Meeks, with assistance from our audio editor Jacob Feeman.

Funding: This episode is sponsored, in part, by the University of Michigan Center for Disability Health and Wellness and National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) Grant #90RTHF0005, the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.