LD and medical school

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone who has had any experience with student who have a LD and undergone medical education. I am a medical student with a LD and my question is specific to people who have taken the USMLE step 1 (medical licensing exam) with testing accommodation. My medical school advisor has mentioned that is is really difficuilt to get any accommodation for the boards.

I was wondering if there are people out there who have gone through this and are willing to help.

thanks in advance

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 07/03/2001 - 2:50 AM

Permalink

I have no personal experiences to share or tips that I myself know of, but I’ll share with you the story of a woman with dyslexia who became a doctor. Here’s the URL if you wish to see it. It might give you some inspiration and, hopefully, some tips you’ll find useful:

http://community-2.webtv.net/kgreen20/MARYGRODALEWISMD/

Also, have you ever read Dr. Barbara Guyer’s book, THE PRETENDERS: GIFTED PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIFFICULTY LEARNING? She runs a program at Marshall University, which includes medical students with LD. Maybe her book could give you some assistance as well. Maybe if you were to email her, she could give you some suggestions regarding the medical licensing exam. Here’s the URL to her Web site:

http://www.marshall.edu/help/

Anon wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if anyone who has had any experience with
> student who have a LD and undergone medical education. I am
> a medical student with a LD and my question is specific to
> people who have taken the USMLE step 1 (medical licensing
> exam) with testing accommodation. My medical school advisor
> has mentioned that is is really difficuilt to get any
> accommodation for the boards.
>
> I was wondering if there are people out there who have gone
> through this and are willing to help.
>
>
> thanks in advance

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 07/05/2001 - 3:34 PM

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Your medical advisor may or may not be correct about that. Who publishes these tests? Contact them directly and for the time being bypass your advisor. If you are identified LD, for them not to give you accomodations would be a violation of the ADA which is a federal law. Do a websearch and you’ll probably find information about the tests and the publisher on line. The publisher of standardized tests usually has also published guidelines for the process by which accomodations are made.

Also check with the Fairtest people. That used to be an organization based in Cambridge, Mass that worked to helped people with the struggles around standardized testing. They used to have a website - www.fairtest.org

I’m sure you’re not the first person in history to ask for accomodations on this test and I’m be surprised if they haven’t been given despite what your advisor tells you. As you went through medical school, did they provide you with accomodations? Why or why not? That would be very important in your pursuit of accomodations on this test.

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