A panel of local and campus experts talked about disaster preparedness for individuals with disabilities. During wildfire season in California, it is crucial to have a solid emergency plan.

Combined with the multiplying heatwaves and other extreme weather events, planning for our vulnerable disabled populations is has become even more critical, as they face additional risks and challenges during times of crisis.

Moderator:

Kathy Harris-Director, Office of Emergency Management, Stanfordhealthcare and Stanford Children's Health

Panelists:

Sheri Burns - Executive Director, Silicon Valley Independent Living Center (SVILC)

Liz Dietz -  Northern California Coastal Region's Disability Integration Lead for the Red Cross

Deirdre Walke -Disability Access Coordinator at Pacific Gas & Electric

Chief Ken Dueker, JD -Director of Emergency Services for the City of Palo Alto

Watch video here

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Stanford Medicine Abilities Coalition (SMAC) held for a first of its kind StanfordMed LIVE event focused on disability. Now more than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic, disabilities, health conditions, and illness impact not only our patients but also all of us, both personally and as members of the Stanford Medicine community.

Stanford Medicine leadership shared information, answer questions, and engage in a roundtable discussion about the state of disability at Stanford and how best to support faculty, staff, and students living with disability and chronic illness. 

Watch video on YouTube Here 

Jennifer Brea's Sundance award-winning documentary, Unrest, is a personal journey from patient to advocate to storyteller.

Jennifer is twenty-eight years-old, working on her PhD at Harvard, and months away from marrying the love of her life when a mysterious fever leaves her bedridden. When doctors tell her it's "all in her head," she picks up her camera as an act of defiance and brings us into a hidden world of millions that medicine abandoned.

In this story of love and loss, newlyweds Jennifer and Omar search for answers as they face unexpected obstacles with great heart. Often confined by her illness to the private space of her bed, Jennifer connects with others around the globe. Like a modern-day Odysseus, she travels by Skype into a forgotten community, crafting intimate portraits of four other families suffering similarly. Jennifer Brea's wonderfully honest and humane portrayal asks us to rethink the stigma around an illness that affects millions. Unrest is a vulnerable and eloquent personal documentary that is sure to hit closer to home than many could imagine.

Unrest world-premiered January in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize for editing. It has since screened at SxSW, CPH:DOX, HotDocs, River Run (Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature), the Nashville Film Festival (Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature), and at Sheffield Doc/Fest, where it won the Wellcome Trust's Illuminate Award for "vibrant and innovative filmmaking inspired by scientific understanding."

Moderator:

Terri L. Wilder, MSW of #MEAction

Panelists:

Jennifer Brea: Unrest Director, Co-founder #MEAction

Ron Davis, PhD:  Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics and Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center. His son is also severely ill with ME.

Jennifer Curtin, MD: Physician specializing in ME/CFS at Center for Complex Diseases in Mountain View, CA.

Ashanti Daniel, disabled nurse, living with ME.

For more information about the film and the movement, click here.

Stanford Medicine Abilities Coalition (SMAC) and Stanford Department of Art and Art History, Documentary Film and Video Program,  held a Q&A and discussion with filmmaker and Stanford alum Reid Davenport (MFA ’16). 

When Reid Davenport was discouraged from studying abroad during his junior year of college based on his disability, he was more than a bit surprised. Davenport decided to travel with a cameraperson throughout Europe, documenting the lives of Europeans with disabilities and exploring the social impact of inaccessibility.

"Access to his films is available on the streaming site Kanopy.

TED Talk (9 min)

PBS Interview (3 min)