This year’s Colin McLaurin Distinguished Lecture, presented by the Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA), will be delivered by industry legend Jean L. Minkel, PT, ATP, as part of RehabWeek in May.
Minkel, senior vice president of rehab and mobility services for Independence Care System in New York City, will be speaking on “Mobility Equity: Uncovering Systemic Inequities Toward Persons with Mobility Disabilities” on Thursday, May 15.
A RESNA Fellow and leader of the private OT/PT practice On a Roll, Minkel also co-edited the newly published second edition of Seating and Wheeled Mobility: A Clinical Resource Guide with Michelle L. Lange.
Learning objectives for the 90-minute lecture include describing the role of self-generated mobility on a child’s cognitive, social and language development; describing how the medical model of medical necessity and prior authorizations influence full participation for people with long-term mobility disabilities; and describing the four principles in Bryan Stevenson’s model to impact systems of injustice.
Attendees can earn 0.1 IACET CEUs upon attending the lecture and completing related lecture components.
“For the last two decades, I have had the privilege of running a wheelchair service designed to meet the needs of persons with mobility disabilities in New York City,” Minkel said in the lecture announcement. “Very quickly, I learned I had to listen more and talk less. Through listening, I discovered what people really needed, which is not always what the system was providing. Our program, On A Roll, is based on the goal of providing mobility equity. Mobility equity starts by treating our clients as consumers.
“This talk will use Bryan Stevenson’s four guiding principles to move toward justice, as a framework to work toward mobility equity. We will examine our clinical practices, public policies, research agendas and technology offerings to uncover systemic inequities toward persons with mobility disabilities. Hopefully, you too, will become not just a caring professional; but a motivated ally.”
The annual RESNA-hosted Distinguished Lecture is named for Colin McLaurin, one of North America’s first rehabilitation engineers “and one of the founding fathers of the field of rehabilitation engineering,” according to a tribute written by Dudley S. Childress, Ph.D., upon McLaurin’s death in 1997. Born in 1922 in Canada, McLaurin began building prosthetics in 1949 at Sunnybrook Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, and is remembered for his contributions to the prosthetics field, as well as to his work in the mobility and orthopaedic fields. McLaurin helped to create RESNA in 1980 and became its second president.
