Survey of the teaching of disability and rehabilitation to medical undergraduates in the UK.

The objective of the following survey was to attempt to establish to what extent the undergraduates in medical schools in the UK were being exposed to structured teaching of disability and rehabilitation (i.e. seminars, lectures, group discussions). A questionnaire and covering letter were sent to 25 medical schools exploring how the teaching was performed and whether it utilized the active involvement of disabled people and/or their carers. It also attempted to ascertain the degree of interdisciplinary teaching occurring. Results showed that rheumatology, general practice and geriatrics were predominantly responsible for this teaching, with little structured teaching in ENT and ophthalmology. Five schools (25%) reported back that no structured teaching was occurring in any department. As expected, there was a larger proportion of positive responses on opportunistic teaching (ward rounds, outpatients). Additional invited comments on the questionnaire revealed a variety of innovative activities taking place in different medical schools. It is recognized that a questionnaire of this nature has limitations; nevertheless, it did reveal gaps in the teaching of disability and rehabilitation, with several responses indicating that excess pressure on the curriculum from other subjects left little or no space at the present time. Our survey suggests that disability and rehabilitation are given insufficient emphasis in undergraduate teaching. In particular, more active involvement of patients and their carers should be encouraged. The small proportion of schools which teach rehabilitation as a defined specialty no doubt reflects the inadequate academic structure at present in this field.