The invisible work of co-creating disability access in work integrated learning

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Disability Studies
• Sociology of Work

Background:

• Health equity demands a diverse healthcare workforce, with increasing numbers of disabled students entering health professions.
• Barriers persist for disabled students in essential work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences, such as clinical placements.
• Limited understanding exists regarding the social processes facilitating WIL access for disabled students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the social processes enabling access to work-integrated learning in clinical settings for disabled health professions students.
• To identify the often-invisible labor undertaken by educators to facilitate this access.

Main Methods:

• An interdisciplinary team conducted 25 in-depth interviews with placement coordinators, supervisors, access professionals, and education/healthcare leaders.
• Data was collected from two hospitals and two universities in eastern Canada.
• Collaborative thematic analysis was used to identify key themes in participant narratives.

Main Results:

• Four themes emerged describing the "invisible work" educators perform: putting in extra time, emotional labor, relational work, and navigating complexities.
• This labor is crucial for creating access but is unrecognized and optional.
• The inequitable distribution of this unrecognized labor results in uneven access to education for disabled students.

Conclusions:

• Educators, policymakers, and institutions must recognize and address the invisible labor required to create accessible work-integrated learning experiences.
• Understanding these social processes is vital for promoting diversity within health professions and healthcare systems.
• Systemic changes are needed to ensure equitable access to clinical placements for all students, regardless of disability status.