Theoretical Approaches to Medical Education Reform

Despite growing rhetoric around diversity and inclusion in medicine, the profession remains deeply tethered to ableist norms that define wellness, competence, and success within rigid and antiquated traditional standards. Disabled and chronically ill trainees often find themselves navigating systems that demand the "performance of wellness", suppress lived experience, and exclude non-normative bodyminds from professional practice. Medical culture’s rigid constructs of "fitness," "resilience," and "professionalism" marginalize disabled clinicians and students, and how disability theory, feminist ethics, and critical race scholarship offer pathways toward a more inclusive and justice-oriented medical future.

Transformational Impacts on Medical Education

Transformative Goals	Traditional Model	Critical Theory-Informed Approach
Knowledge	Objective, decontextualized, Western-dominant	Situated, relational, plural, experiential
Curriculum	Standardized, apolitical	Responsive, justice-centered, diverse
Professionalism	Rigid, appearance-based, elitist	Flexible, inclusive, culturally attuned
Assessment	Uniform and linear	Adaptive, accessible, anti-racist
Student Support	Remediation-based, hierarchical	Relational, trauma-informed, collective care

Transformational Impacts on Clinical Practice

Care Framework	Conventional Medicine	Critical Theory-Informed Medicine
Patient Relationship	Provider as authority	Collaborative, co-created care
Knowledge	Biomedical supremacy	Multiple truths, lived experience
Goals	Efficiency, compliance, normalization	Healing, autonomy, justice
Systems	Hierarchical, institutional	Decentralized, community-rooted
Outcomes	Productivity, throughput	Equity, dignity, sustainability