Dealing with disabilities in science - a thread

- reflects my personal experience only -

People with disabilities are rare in science, or at least we think they are rare because not all disabilities are visible on the first sight. I am hearing impaired and here is my story:

When I applied for a PhD position, I didn’t tell my PI during the interview that I am hearing impaired. In this quiet room with only three people around, it was easy to hide that I don’t hear very well even with my hearing aid. And also later in the lab, I didn’t tell people.

But there are situations especially at the clean bench, when hearing is very hard. And my colleagues often wonder why I didn’t get things right or even didn’t react. In my second year of my PhD, I got a new hearing aid and I decided that now is the right time point to tell people

And you know what, everything got so much easier since then. People respect my disability and talked louder with me. I never heard a bad sentence from one of my colleagues about that and they don’t think I am stupid if I make mistakes because I didn’t get sth right.

So my advice

is: tell people, it might be easier than you think and make things better. Of course, there are a lot of disabilities out there, and all are different. But I do think that especially in science, it is important to not hide it and believe that our colleagues will respect this.

It’s not always easy, especially at conferences. I don’t wear a badge with „hearing impaired“ and I don’t tell everyone within the first seconds of a conversation. But if I have problems with understanding sth, I just tell it.