Going beyond Disease to Address Disability

Abstract

One summer day about 10 years ago, a young woman flagged me down as I was rolling back to my hospital on my scooter wheelchair. An inpatient taking a sunshine break, she sat on a bench, intravenous pole in tow. She explained, tears brimming, that complications from diabetes made walking increasingly difficult. She was a single mother, and she could no longer get to the grocery store. She had asked her physician to prescribe a power wheelchair, but he had refused, insisting that she keep walking. Unable to meet her family's basic needs, she had bought a cheap manual wheelchair, . . .