The benefits and principles, and therefore, subsequent values of Universal Design are a promise of a better world and continuous, on-going human involvement in itching closer to accomplish that promise. These are not benefits or values to necessarily aspire to, but they are ones we should work on enacting so they are not an aspiration, but a reality. There are challenges to Universal Design, and it is rarely implemented in full. In other words, theory and practice often diverge. (Jones, 2014, 1369–1374; Bringolf, 2010)

Within the discourse of Universal Design and the built environment, specifically in relationship to medical environments, emphasis is placed on patients and patient-care. Usually, how architecture and accessibility within architecture impacts doctors is dully considered, if at all. This should no longer be an afterthought. Within that, disabled doctors have even less visibility. Moreover, due to the fact that Universal Design has its roots in architecture, and given the entanglement disabled persons have with medical environments and spaces, it is quite astonishing how little these voices have been heard and utilized by the architectural community (though, perhaps, not entirely surprising). 

Where do we go from here?: Influence on Architecture

The contribution of disabled doctors to medicine should not only be highlighted, but also celebrated. Most generally, disabled doctors should be welcomed to the profession and valued for their contribution to patient care. Similarly, the breadth of their contribution to medicine should be expanded to include their idiosyncratic understanding of the environment they work on in a daily basis. Their input in how to make these spaces more accessible – whether through the nature of alteration of the environment or at the beginning level of building a new medical facility or built environment – should be taken into consideration. Furthermore, architects and able-bodied doctors must recognize that accommodations issued to patients are usually applicable to disabled doctors as well. While disabled doctors and patients are unique categories, these types of individuals may to be found to have a lot of overlap at certain conjunctures in their lives.

Universal design, while applying to both people with disabilities and people with non-disabilities, has been most successfully executed by architects with disabilities who take into consideration different ways of embodied being in the world. It is also no coincidence that universal design was started by a disabled architect, Ron Mace, and that legacy is being continued by architects like Jack Catlin. The sensitivity of the disabled body's phenomenological experience of the world and the built environment leads the way to such innovations that push us closer as well as contribute to access and equity in practice (rather than strictly theory).

The architecture of hospitals and other healthcare spaces should consider the voices of disabled doctors to ensure a more promising equitable and accessible future for all doctors – disabled and non-disabled – and patients alike. For example, Diana Anderson's conceptualization of the Dochitect represents a model of how architects, doctors, and, furthermore, disabled doctors can come together and collaborate. Who better can speak to the tribulations of using a wheelchair in medical environments than a disabled doctor? To sensory modularity? To navigating stairs and long passages in hospitals? To the need for light and open spaces? Disabled doctors represent integral voices that will advance these interventions in architecture. 

References:

Bringolf, Jane. (2010). Barriers to universal design and what to do about them. 5th Australasian Housing Researchers' Conference.

Jones P. (2014). Situating universal design architecture: designing with whom?. Disability and rehabilitation, 36(16), 1369–1374. https://doi.org/10.3109/09638288.2014.944274