The medical model of disability is a sociopolitical model by which illness or disability, being the result of a physical condition, and which is intrinsic to the individual (it is part of that individual’s own body), may reduce the individual's quality of life, and causes clear disadvantages to the individual.
The medical model tends to believe that curing or at least managing illness or disability mostly or completely revolves around identifying the illness or disability from an in-depth clinical perspective (in the sense of the scientific understanding undertaken by trained healthcare providers), understanding it, and learning to control and/or alter its course. By extension, the medical model also believes that a "compassionate" or just society invests resources in health care and related services in an attempt to cure disabilities medically, to expand functionality and/or improve functioning, and to allow disabled persons a more "normal" life. The medical profession's responsibility and potential in this area is seen as central.
Read more about Medical Model Of Disability: Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words medical model, medical and/or model:
“The entire construct of the “medical model” of “mental illness”Mwhat is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“One fellow I was dating in medical school ... was a veterinarian and he wanted to get married. I said, but you’re going to be moving to Minneapolis, and he said, oh, you can quit and I’ll take care of you. I said, “Go.””
—Sylvia Beckman (b. c. 1931)
“It has to be acknowledged that in capitalist society, with its herds of hippies, originality has become a sort of fringe benefit, a mere convention, accepted obsolescence, the Beatnik model being turned in for the Hippie model, as though strangely obedient to capitalist laws of marketing.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)