ReviewBMJ open2025
Barriers, facilitators and solutions to equitable career progression for disabled doctors: an integrative review.
Review in BMJ open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesDisabled resident doctors face persistent structural, cultural and institutional barriers to career progression. This integrative review synthesises empirical and grey literature to identify the challenges disabled doctors encounter, the practices that support their careers and the potential solutions applicable to healthcare, in particular National Health Service (NHS), settings.
designIntegrative literature review using a content analysis approach to data analysis. Included sources were published in English and examined disabled doctors' career progression or included disabled doctors as a separate subgroup. Opinion pieces without empirical grounding and articles not available in full text were excluded.
settingInternational postgraduate medical education, with consideration for transferability and applicability to the UK NHS.
participantsFocused on the experiences and careers of disabled resident doctors, at any stage of their career, prior to completion of training.
resultsFollowing Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-Equity guidelines, 53 sources were included and analysed. Structural ableism, inaccessible systems and stigma around disclosure were consistently identified as barriers to career progression. Facilitators included mentorship, affirming supervisory relationships and identity-affirming networks. Promising practices included universal design approaches, anticipatory rather than reactive approaches to making adjustments and integration of disability equity into organisational governance. However, most initiatives remain unevaluated, and UK-specific evidence is limited.
conclusionsWhile awareness of barriers is growing, evidence-based solutions remain underdeveloped and unevenly implemented. To build a sustainable and representative medical workforce, workforce policy and planning must not only remove barriers to progression for disabled doctors, but also embed disability inclusion into the structures and cultures that shape medical career paths.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.