Am J Psychiatry 1989; 146:771-774
Copyright © 1989 by American Psychiatric Association
Experiences of a paraplegic psychiatry resident on an inpatient psychiatric unit
BB Lawn
Hahnemann University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA.
The author reviews the literature on disabled physicians and describes her
own adjustment to paraplegia. While she was a medical student and
practicing internist, she encountered few comments about her disability,
but during her later psychiatry residency, hospitalized psychiatric
patients discussed it frequently. The author presents examples and points
out that patients' reactions often revealed much about their characteristic
response patterns; reactions to her disability became a type of projective
test. Her primary defenses against patients' remarks were
intellectualization and isolation of affect. Supervisors who were able to
discuss the impact of her disability on the doctor-patient relationship
were considered most helpful.
