A visible disability can become the first thing people notice about someone, but it should never become the measure of what they are capable of. Still, assumptions creep in, especially when someone looks different from what we expect. And sometimes, people take those assumptions so far that they start treating a perfectly capable person as though they have something to prove.
A 24-year-old medical worker shared how he was assigned to perform an EKG on an 8-year-old patient. The kid’s mom became fixated on his prosthetic ear, calling it inappropriate for a children’s hospital, and asked him to remove it. The dad joined in by questioning his qualifications, and the encounter only got worse. Read on to see how the parents treated him because of his disability.
Looking different from what people expect should never be a reason to question someone’s abilities
This medical worker’s prosthetic ear became the focus of a tense encounter when a patient’s parents questioned his appearance and qualifications
Disability discrimination can create barriers that leave qualified workers having to prove themselves in ways others do not
For many people with disabilities, the challenge is not doing the job well but being given the chance to do it at all. The World Health Organization notes that stigma and discrimination can create barriers to employment, while people with disabilities are often denied opportunities that others take for granted.
An OECD report found that people with disabilities continue to face significant employment gaps compared with people without disabilities. In the survey conducted in 2019, it was revealed that people with disabilities were about 40% less likely to be employed. The report also shows that improving education alone has not been enough to close that gap, noting that having the skills for a job does not always mean getting the same opportunities to use them.
Additionally, the International Labor Organization found that differences in employment and wages cannot be explained by education, experience, or occupation, pointing instead to factors such as discrimination and a lack of workplace accommodations. These factors can still leave qualified people with disabilities at a disadvantage, even when they have the skills needed to do the job.
A person may have the training, experience, and credentials for a job, yet still find themselves having to prove that they can do it because someone has decided their disability must say something about their ability. In this medical worker's case, that assumption showed up almost immediately, before he even performed the EKG he was more than qualified for.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission explains that disability-related harassment can come from co-workers, supervisors, or even people outside the organization, such as clients or customers. Offensive comments about a disability can cross the line into unlawful harassment when they become severe or frequent enough to create a hostile work environment.
Understanding disability etiquette starts with respecting people without making assumptions about their abilities
There is a line between being curious about someone’s disability and making their disability your business. Cleveland Clinic’s guidance on disability etiquette advises against invasive questions about a person’s condition, appearance or how they manage everyday life. For example, the dad’s questions about whether the medical worker was qualified suggested that his disability made his competence questionable.
An important part of disability etiquette is knowing when not to make someone’s disability the center of the interaction. Guidance from Understood recommends focusing on the person rather than assuming what they can or cannot do. In the workplace, that means focusing on someone’s skills and experience instead of deciding what they can do based on how they look.
A systematic review of research on healthcare providers with disabilities found that ableism can show up through negative attitudes, bullying, harassment, and unsupportive work environments. So while hospitals are places where people go for care, disabled professionals can still encounter the same prejudices they face elsewhere.
This is why broader representation matters. Research on disabled health and human-service professionals has found that they remain underrepresented in these fields. Having professionals with disabilities in healthcare can help create a workforce that better reflects the people it serves, rather than treating disability as something that automatically disqualifies someone from the profession.
At the end of the day, the medical worker was there to care for a child, not defend his appearance or prove that his disability did not make him less capable. People with disabilities deserve to be treated with the same respect and consideration as anyone else.
If you were in his shoes, would you have spoken up when the parents questioned you, or kept your cool and walked away? Tell us how you would have handled it in the comments.
Readers rallied behind the medical worker and called out the parents’ disrespectful treatment of his disability
