Report Urges Disability Training for Medical Professionals
A National Council on Disability report calls for required disability clinical competency in health professional education programs.
Updated on Nov. 11, 2026 in Special Needs
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The National Council on Disability released the report A Public Health Failure, which calls for disability clinical competency training to be a required part of medical, nurse practitioner and physician associate curricula. The report was requested by Dr. Rick Rader during his service on the council.
Why it matters
The report links the lack of disability-specific clinical education to health disparities for people with disabilities, who often receive care from professionals with little formal training in their needs. Its recommendations target the educational pipeline that shapes how future clinicians are prepared.
The report is a policy recommendation rather than a quantified study, and the extraction provides no national prevalence or outcome figures for the disparities it describes. The Orange Grove Center's 70-year history of serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is the only measured figure cited, and how many programs will implement the training remains unresolved.
The players
National Council on Disability
A presidentially appointed federal advisory body that advises the government on disability policy.
Dr. Rick Rader
Director of the Morton J. Kent Habilitation Center and of Project DIME at Orange Grove Center in Chattanooga.
Orange Grove Center
A Chattanooga organization that has supported people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities for more than 70 years.
The details
The report, A Public Health Failure: The Lack of Disability Clinical Care and Competency Training of Medical Professionals, asks medical schools, nurse practitioner programs and physician associate programs to make disability clinical competency a required component of their curricula. Project DIME, which began at Orange Grove Center in 2025, advocates for a standardized, mandatory disability clinical competency curriculum across health professional education.
Timeline
2025: Project DIME began at Orange Grove Center in Chattanooga.
November 11, 2026: The National Council on Disability released the report.
Health Care Access Context
The report extends the disability rights framework of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 from access to clinical education, targeting training gaps that anti-discrimination protections do not directly address. It shifts the focus from whether people with disabilities can enter health care to whether clinicians are prepared to treat them well.
Families of people with disabilities may find that health care providers in the future are required to have formal training in disability-specific clinical care. Until such curricula are adopted, people with disabilities may continue to encounter clinicians with limited preparation for their needs.
The takeaway
Families and caregivers can ask prospective providers whether they have received formal training in disability-specific clinical care. Asking this question may help surface care gaps that the report identifies as contributing to health disparities.
Further reading
Explore more Special Needs coverage for context on care and education for people with disabilities.
More information
Read the complete National Council on Disability full report on the agency's website.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Chattanoogan.
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