This is of course in part due to the fact that bench science recruits from the part of the population with the lowest incidence of disabilities--young, educated, upper/middle class. Why else might labs typically contain non-disabled people? One possibility is that people with significant disabilities recognize that the lab bench will be a particularly tough place to find accommodations, and thus steer clear. The other, darker, possibility is that anyone hiring scientists will avoid taking on someone who requires accommodations.
Here's the relevant bit of ADA law, as found on the EEOC site:
Boldface mine.A qualified employee or applicant with a disability is an individual who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the job in question. Reasonable accommodation may include, but is not limited to:
- Making existing facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities.
- Job restructuring, modifying work schedules, reassignment to a vacant position;
- Acquiring or modifying equipment or devices, adjusting or modifying examinations, training materials, or policies, and providing qualified readers or interpreters.
An employer is required to make a reasonable accommodation to the known disability of a qualified applicant or employee if it would not impose an "undue hardship" on the operation of the employer's business. Undue hardship is defined as an action requiring significant difficulty or expense when considered in light of factors such as an employer's size, financial resources, and the nature and structure of its operation.
This is purely hypothetical, because I'm not hiring people, but I'm just plain curious: have any of you ever been approached about a job (or grad student position etc.) by someone who would require the types of accommodations listed above? Ever worked with one?
I'm fully supportive of the idea that people with disabilities deserve an equal crack at science as the rest of us, but I'm struck dumb at what would be involved in adapting many types of bench science to someone with a major disability. Wheelchair? Let's start with lowering all the lab benches by a foot or more. Deaf? An available interpreter as needed. Amputee? I don't know, but it would have to start with those damn Eppendorf caps that sometimes defy even the two-handed among us.
So I'm asking out of sheer ignorance. What accommodations would you consider reasonable to implement? Who among the disabled could find a home in your lab? Has someone? Is bench science considered to have a "nature and structure" such that any major accommodation would be "undue hardship"? Are there ways that certain types of lab work could be made more accessible?
* Actually what he said was, "I've sure known some people in labs with apparent mental handicaps, does that count?"
22 comments:
In my PhD lab there were two different postdoc applicants during my time here who came to interview and had disabilities. One was deaf, the other had a very severe stutter. Both had done brilliant work, were intelligent, witty, asked great questions, were interested in the work going on here and would have made great additions to the lab. Neither one got an offer. I think in part it was that my PI views "successful" scientists as being able to really sell themselves, especially during presentations of their work. For obvious reasons, neither of these applicants gave a traditional talk about their PhD work, but instead, met one on one with the PI and members of the lab. True, it took some time to understand the applicants when they spoke (on top of their communication disabilities, neither was a native English speaker, how's that for impressive?!) but I could say the same of multiple other applicants to the lab with strong accents or a tendency to mumble. But the major "accommodation" needed to each person was a bit of patience on the part of the other group members. Sure, group meetings would have been difficult, maybe would have had to be re-formatted, maybe communication would have had to flow more on paper/email and less by speech. I'm still disappointed that our PI wasn't willing to take those steps and give one of them a chance.
I work in a lab with someone who is deaf. She doesn't/can't lip read so we write down everything we need to tell her. We also have a sign language interpreter for all our lab meetings. She is a great worker and seems to be doing really well. I'd rather have her in the lab than some of the somewhat explosive personalities I work with, I feel like the amount of extra time to get the interpreter and write something out is nothing compared to stepping around someone who is difficult to work with (and more productive too).
Your post has impressed on me how amazing my PI is for not excluding her, also because although it is only a minor bit of extra work to have her in the lab, she is also post-undergrad taking a year off so she can apply to medical school with some research on her resume. Basically, someone that I think PIs see as a waste of time and energy anyway.
I am hearing-impaired and can't hear alarms, so my grad lab attached strobe lights to critical equipment, so in case I was the only one in the lab (which was often), I would know when the -80 freezer failed (again) and could rescue our strains. There was a grad student in my current department who was born without part of one arm, and worked in a frog lab. She was amazing, and my understanding is that while she could have requested accommodation, she never did, and was able to do most everything on her own (including microinjections). People with disabilities absolutely have the right to request accommodations, but I hate to ask for it because I was raised to believe that no one cares whether you have a disability or not - you just have to do your best. However, I will be teaching a large lecture class soon, and I'm trying to decide how I want to handle the possibility that I won't hear students' question since the room is theater-style, and I won't be able to roam around like I can in a smaller room ("yes, you, way back in the nose-bleed section?") If I can swing it, I may request a TA to sit in on my course and relay questions as necessary. But I still don't know.
My graduate advisor is in a wheelchair, and while he doesn't do bench science now (has a lab full of graduate students to do the work), I assume that during his PhD work accomodations were made. Your post has inspired me to ask him about it. Here is an article about chemists with disabilities and the accomodations that were made:
http://membership.acs.org/C/CWD/workchem/eduwest.htm
The weekly publication of the American Chemical Society, Chemical and Engineering News, did an article about chemists with disabilities in 2007.
http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/85/i30/html/8530acsnews.html
I have worked with someone who was deaf and couldn't speak; interpreters were arranged for the meetings, we did a lot of writing to communicate, and his immediate boss made a point of taking sign language courses so they could communicate better.
Hey, thanks for the information! The link from Anon @ 6:09 was really interesting and I'm linking it here too. (Next Anon, your link left me behind a subscription firewall alas, but is it maybe the same article?)
Several of the profiled scientists said that they worked mostly or exclusively with computational modeling, which of course makes a lot of sense. But I was impressed to see the number that also survived with accommodations as simple as raised platforms for benchwork.
Jenn, although I haven't seen this sort of thing happen myself, it doesn't surprise me. I'm a bit surprised, though, that your PI's main objection (you hypothesize) was the difficulty in presenting their work publicly. Of course that's a huge aspect of a scientist's career, but to me it would seem reasonable that these applicants must have understood they were at a disadvantage--but they still wanted to do lab work--that's really impressive. I suppose if your PI also knew that they couldn't write worth a damn (you mention non-native speakers) then that's a whole different issue. Can't give seminars--survivable. Can't write grants OR give seminars...uh oh. Anyhow, I share your curiosity about how they might have done.
Anon @ 5:16 (wow, this post really brought out the lurkers), you're right, I can imagine a PI being willing to do that for a great postdoc, but I am stunned that your PI was willing to do that for a one-year tech. Impressive.
And Anon @ 5:59, I was totally wondering about lab alarms. Our fire alarms have strobes but as you point out, most major lab equipment relies only on beeps. How hard was it to fit the -80 and so on with a strobe? Incidentally, this post came up because I was talking with my brother about ADA-mandated accommodations, and one of them is that lecture halls for over 50 people (I think) are required to have assisted listening devices. Admittedly these are probably usually set up to go one way (speaker to audience) and not the other way around, but do you know if the room will have such a thing, and are there ways you could adapt it for your purposes? Wireless microphone available, maybe? Frankly I think that you should feel comfortable badgering the admin/facilities for whatever you need, but I can certainly understand wanting to solve it yourself. Props.
I am Anon @5:59. My grad institution's facilities department was great about setting up the strobe lights (they did it for another lab, where the research tech was deaf). All alarms are hard-wired to the building (so facilities can see a log of alarms, too), so it was just a matter of running a wire from the freezer to the strobe light, then from the strobe light to the wall source. At my undergrad school, they installed a fire alarm in my lab with a strobe light by buying a battery-powered light, putting it in my line of sight, then jerry-rigging a wire from the alarm in the hallway to the strobe light.
For the lecture, the assisted listening devices are a great resource, and I have used it when I was a grad TA. The hall I'm working in is not equipped for it, so that's an issue. Also, for my type of hearing-impairment, I have trouble comprehending some words, even if they are spoken loudly, so it wouldn't always work.
I think it's great that you are thinking about the issue. I have been lucky to have supportive PIs and institutions to help me when I absolutely need it (although some of it is probably motivated by fear of liability suits if something were to happen), but not every institution is as flexible.
One more thought: NIH offers a special NRSA for predocs with disabilities (F31) [I didn't qualify because I'm not deaf. Moderate hearing-loss does not qualify as a disability, according to NIH). In addition to the standard NIH-scale stipends, these grants also provide money specifically for disability-related accommodations (alarms, modified equipment, a sign-language interpreter, etc.)
When I was an undergrad, a student in one of my lab classes was severely disabled (as in in a wheelchair, and with significant palsy in his arms). He was studying to become a Chemical Engineer (of the theoretical/design variety), so he had to take chemistry, engineering and physics labs. They were modified for him, but I don't know the details. He was a brilliant engineer, so I hope someone hired him.
In grad school, I knew a synthetic chemist in a wheelchair. The department moved into a brand new building during my first year. In the new labs, a certain percentage of the benches and hoods were designed to be wheelchair accessible (possibly an ADA requirement?), so he had no problems.
I knew a biology major in college who was blind. I attended a small liberal arts college and work study students who had taken the lab courses before were hired to help her out - we had to describe things to her but follow her directions on the procedure etc. If you're really interested in how that worked I believe they published a paper on it in the Journal of Chemical Education in 2008.
The department where I did my MSc had a grad student that was hearing impaired. She was provided someone to assist with presentations. I wasn't working closely with her, but her science was fine and I never heard anyone complain.
When my undergrad institution built the new chemistry building that our lab moved into, they specifically put in at least one wheelchair-accessible fume hood per lab, in the teaching labs and the research labs. I don't know if anyone has used them for their designated purpose yet, but I always thought that was pretty cool.
This is a very interesting post, with equally interesting comments.
I've never really thought about this issue - the only "disability" I've had to deal with in my very short career (still a grad student) was students with ADHD or language barriers who needed extra time on exams, which was easily arranged.
I never really thought about how those with much more serious disabilities would function in science, and what accomadations would need to be made.
Science is hard enough to do as an able bodied person... anyone with even the slightest disability has my utmost respect, because they have to deal with all the BS we have to deal with, and then some. Kudos!
interesting comments - and i was just thinking about this a few days ago! i've never seen or heard of anyone with a disability in the labs/departments i've been in ... sometimes i freak myself out wondering if people would still hire me if something ever happened to me to require accommodation for a disability.
I am a phd student how works on behavior and we do a lot of fieldwork. As in, 8 hours of snorkeling per day for 3 weeks straight, carrying lots of heavy equipment and going in and out of boats. One summer, we had an undergrad work with us. She was born with only one hand.
She was amazing in everyway. Physically, she had no troubles with the work (she was even better than some grad students and professors that I have done field work with). She was also brilliant and personable and selfless and pretty much the best person I have ever met!
While we were (secretly) worried about her "disability", she proved us all wrong!
My best friend worked an hourly job as an undergrad as a "reader" for a molecular biology postdoc with muscular dystrophy. He was blind and wheelchair-bound, and she read articles to him,read webpages to him and took dictation. She was only one of a number of readers he had, though the major accommodation for him was that the lab hired a technician to run his experiments. The technician was his wife, who had been a nurse when they met and who had trained to be a molecular biologist in order to take over and be his hands in the lab.
He was a lively, funny guy, but he took his research very seriously. He was correct in his estimation that he'd die within the next five years, and his postdoctoral research was all that he could contribute to his field of science. Without these accommodations, he would have been thrown out of science a decade earlier.
For the disabled scientists who make it to the level of PI, they can apply for Research Initiation Grants and additional consideration, as they are an unquestionably underrepresented minority in science.
This is all quite fascinating, and thank you for the education. I've been thinking about it both from the point of view of "What if something happened to me--could I still do lab work?" and "What if a disabled person applied to work with me some day in the future--how would I deal?" I feel more knowledgeable about both questions now. Sneks, I'm particularly bowled over by your colleague.
Anon @ 5:59 again, thanks for sharing your experience. Best of luck with your teaching plans; a supplemental TA/"listener" sounds like a very appropriate solution, and I hope you find something that works for you. As bella says, kudos to everyone grappling with these issues above and beyond the problems of science.
My advisor is blind. Not 100%, I think she has almost 1% vision left. She didn't go blind until after being hired as a scientist. She still scuba dives and is sometimes better than others because she isn't disoriented by working in the dark.
She is able to organize fieldwork and supervise everything, although she has to delegate details to other people. The most noticeable accomodation is that she can't see pictures at meeting so people have to describe them to her. Of course, this isn't lab work, it's field work which generally has a group of people with different tasks and abilities anyway. (Eg, programming instruments, driving boats, scuba diving, analysis). I just wanted to say that it is possible to be successful at science with disabilities. I've also noticed that a lot of minorly "disabled" people end up in her group. People with severe allergies, chronic illness, mental disturbances. I don't know if that's just happenstance or if it's because she's understanding that there are personal problems but you can still be successful.
It's clearly more difficult to do cool science if one is disabled, but I hope that more people can understand that the patience and accommodation needed by others is much less than the patience needed by the disabled person themself.
Also, almost everybody could benefit from a little patience and recognition that humans have personal issues that are different for each person.
When I was a grad student, the neighboring lab had a technician who basically had only one working arm (birth defect). The technician was technically very talented and is still in the lab. He has already been first author on a paper.
I don't know what kinds of accommodations were made, but I imagine it was mostly things like people helping him change rotors, etc. He was quite skilled working one handed.
These stories are great; thank you for all the information! I know several colorblind chemists. It's not a traditional disability but they do have to have others tell them what color their solutions/crystals are of new compounds.
I know a colour-blind geologist (which is tricky...) and have had to make accomodations in class for a severely sight-impaired student who was determined to take a microscope class (camera rig, very large monitor... not sure how much he actually got out of the labs, but he did fine in the written work). I work in a field with fair amounts a field work and know quite a few scientists with mobility limitations (mainly damaged backs) which seem to do very little to prevent them from being enthusiastic and capable field workers. Although it can be a bit of a circus at times... A can't bend, B can't lift, C can bend and lift but not walk any great distance... it always works out, so far.
Yeah, I know one blind mathematician; one professor who is blind in one eye; several people with colorblindness (in fields that require lots of color usage) and several people with partial deafness (deaf in one ear).
I also have a friend who is hemiplegic, and since she is in a wheelchair she would need a bench lowered and a full-time assistant to do the kinds of things I do on a daily basis.
I remember asking one of my PIs what he thought about doing renovations for someone like that, and he said that even if the university would pay for it, he would find a reason not to hire someone with that kind of disability.
My friend has since gone back to med school, and she has already experienced some seriously illegal discrimination (like the admissions dean saying they did not want to accept her, but since she got a perfect score on her MCATs and had straight As and glowing recommendation letters, they couldn't justify it).
Where I work, it would be incredibly time-consuming even to get to the lab from the parking lot, never mind getting down the aisles between benches. It's the kind of place that has a regulation width bathroom stall but the door leading INTO the bathroom is not wide enough. Genius.
We have all the elevators and ramps, etc. that you would need, but it's a totally inaccessible work environment.
So I don't know how disabled students get enough experience doing real lab work to know that they like it, when we make it impossible for them to even wheel their chairs in far enough to hold a pipette with their one working hand.
But that's just my field. I'm really glad to hear these other stories that sound more appreciative of real diversity. I hope some campuses are better than others in that regard.
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