Ep 161: Turning Personal Experience into Disability Health Reform

Kendra Clark, a physician assistant and disability health advocate, shares her deeply personal journey, explaining how her brother Guy survived a severe traumatic brain injury as a child and lived with significant disabilities, inspiring her lifelong commitment to caregiving and later a career in pediatric neurosurgery. After years of witnessing healthcare providers struggle to effectively communicate with and care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and following both her brother's death and her own experience surviving a brain tumor and acquiring a disability, she became dedicated to improving disability-focused healthcare education. She founded the Disability Health Education Initiative, a nonprofit organization that develops training resources for healthcare students and professionals, advocating for disability-specific clinical education, accessible healthcare environments, and greater involvement of people with disabilities in healthcare design and research. Throughout the conversation, she emphasizes that better clinician training and accessibility are essential to achieving equitable healthcare outcomes for people with disabilities.