Living with a disability with Lisa Iezzoni, MD

As many of us age we develop physical problems, we have difficulty seeing, hearing and mobility. We require a walker, wheelchair or motorized device to get around. And we feel that our physicians don’t understand our problems. So we asked Dr. Lisa Iezzoni to be a guest on the podcast to help us work through the challenges we face. Lisa I. Iezzoni, MD, MSc is Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and based at the Health Policy Research Center, Mongan Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research for the past 25 years has focused on improving the life experience of people with mobility disability. Dr. Iezzoni has conducted numerous studies examining the health care experiences of persons with disability. She has also explored home-based supportive services; her book Making Their Days Happen: Paid Personal Assistance Services Supporting People with Disability Living in Their Homes and Communities was published in 2022. During the 2022-2023 academic year, she was the Sally Starling Seaver Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Dr. Iezzoni is a member of the National Academy of Medicine in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dr. Iezzoni and I discuss her disability and use of a wheelchair for the past 47 years, we talk about her career and research, the problems of independent living with a disability, health disparities, and the fact that many physicians are reluctant to trreat patients with a disability. We also discuss the problems of getting good dental care. We talk about the contents of her book - Making Their Days Happen: Paid Personal Assistance Services Supporting People with Disability Living in Their Homes and Communities. We close with a discussion of a phrase she used in a previous podcast - "OK, what can I do to make that person's life better? Book Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Their-Days-Happen-Communities-ebook/dp/B09KQ5LVML/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GHX8CLXARWQA&keywords=making+their+days+happen&qid=1707093399&sprefix=makingg+their+days+happen%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1