New Ottawa study highlights prevalence of disabilities in physicians

A new study is shining light on the prevalence of disabilities among working physicians in Canada, and its Ottawa author is using his personal experience to advocate for change.

Dr. Michael Quon, who works as a general internal medicine specialist at The Ottawa Hospital, led a new study that found 17 per cent of all physicians in Canada were living with disabilities at least some of the time — a revelation that was inspired by his own traumatic brain injury.

The road that led to the new study began in 2015, when Quon was on a cycling tour in Colorado and was involved in a bike crash that left him intubated and in a coma when he arrived at the hospital there. Once he was stable enough, he was transferred to the brain-injury rehab program in Ottawa, where his recovery continued for around nine months.

When Quon felt well enough to go back to work, he realized he had trouble in a clinical setting. Too much light and noise, multi-tasking, fatigue and keeping his focus were just some of the struggles he faced as he attempted to begin his career.

“For all of these reasons, I found the hospital environment very difficult to work in initially,” he said.

“I needed a controlled work environment. I still could work — that’s the point. I still could do the work, but just differently. I needed accommodations in order to work effectively.”

But at the time those sorts of accommodations didn’t exist for physicians. Out of necessity, Quon helped create a policy in 2022 that would accommodate physicians living with disabilities at The Ottawa Hospital’s department of medicine. The policy was the first of its kind in Canada, he said, and the hospital’s department of emergency medicine has since implemented the same policy.

This experience, however, gave him insight into the lack of available resources and data about the prevalence of disabilities among physicians. That kickstarted his efforts to be the first in Canada to study and report this information.

“My own experience was really eye-opening. I found there was really a lack of policy, guidance and support for getting into the workplace as a physician with a disability,” he said.

“There are a lot of physicians with disabilities in Canada, and a lot of them have faced similar challenges. I was really motivated to influence the system and try to improve support and guidance for physicians with disabilities. Through all that advocacy, I got involved in research.”

That research led to the new study, published on Oct. 13 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Quon and a team of researchers used data from the 2021 Canadian long-form census to estimate the prevalence and types of disabilities among physicians, a dataset that was previously unavailable in Canada.

What they found was surprising.

The study reports 17 per cent of all physicians in Canada suffer from disabilities at least some of the time. Broken down further, five per cent reported disabilities “always or often.” Another 12 per cent reported disabilities “sometimes.”

“The rates are significant. This is not a minority of physicians,” Quon said.

“I think this is a really important prevalence for the profession and the health-care workforce to be aware of in terms of planning and policy and opportunities to try to ensure these physicians are included in the workforce.”

The most commonly reported disability was mental health (40 per cent), followed by vision (37 per cent), hearing (15 per cent), mobility/physical (13 per cent) and cognitive/learning (six per cent).

Disabilities were more common in women (six per cent) than in men (4.5 per cent).

The study also found that younger age did not preclude disability. While rates generally increased with age, the prevalence of disability in physicians younger than 35 years remained notable (5.18 per cent). The prevalence of hearing, mobility and physical disabilities increased with age, while mental-health disabilities were more common in younger age groups.

These physicians frequently face discrimination, inaccessible workplaces and inadequate support, Quon said. The study says providing support to these physicians, instead of institutional barriers, is important for Canada’s overall health system.

“Physicians with disabilities are an important, yet often overlooked contributor to workforce diversity,” the study says.

“Ensuring accessible work environments and equitable policies can promote the wellbeing and retention of physicians with disabilities and support those seeking to return to practice. Beyond benefits to the physicians themselves, advancing accessibility might enhance patient care by fostering a workforce that better reflects the populations it serves.”

Quon hopes the study leads to widespread change, including hospitals across Canada creating accommodations policies similar to the one at The Ottawa Hospital. He also hopes medical associations will improve their guidance and support for physicians, something that has already happened in Ontario as a result of his work.

The Ottawa Hospital’s accommodations policy caught the attention of the Ontario Medical Association, which has since developed a resource on its website educating physicians in Ontario about their rights to accommodation in Ontario hospitals. Quon hopes it will catch on among other health-care leaders, but he wants, above all else, for the study to create more awareness of the issue and eventually lead to policy changes across the board.

“We can educate physicians and physician leaders on this issue. It’s different from policy,” he said.

“I think policy will come when awareness of rights is a bit more shared and disseminated a bit more broadly across Canada. I’m hopeful that will influence policy and implementation and more system level protections like that.”

Now, more than a decade removed from the accident that changed his life, Quon says he has finally hit his stride as a practising physician.

“I’m feeling a lot better. Way better — night and day,” he said.

“Now that I’m getting more involved in research and leadership, I’m really finding meaning in working on this issue at a system level to try and be a part of influencing change in the system.”