In this episode, host Erin Croyle and guest Dr. Kathryn Rooth talk about just how much, or how little, medical professionals know about treating patients with disabilities. Is there a topic you want to learn more about? Something you want to ask Dr. Rooth? Feel free to contact Erin via email. The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability. The Center for Family Involvement at VCU School of Education's Partnership for People with Disabilities provides informational and emotional support to people with disabilities and their families. All of our services are free. We just want to help. We know how hard this can be because we're in it with you. TRANSCRIPT: 01:00:07:20 - 01:00:37:15 Erin Croyle Welcome to The Odyssey. Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle. The creator and host of The Odyssey podcast explores the unique journey were sent on when a loved one has a disability. I started down this path more than a decade ago when my first child was born with Down's Syndrome. My journey weaved its way here, working with the Center for Family Involvement at VCU's, Partnership for People with Disabilities. 01:00:37:17 - 01:01:10:09 Erin Croyle This podcast does a deep dive into the joys and hardships we face. We celebrate how amazing the odyssey of parenting, caregiving and disability is. While tackling the tough stuff to an unfortunate truth, many of us learn early on is how antiquated and ablest our health care systems can be when it comes to treating people with disabilities. Joining me today is Dr. Kathryn Rooth, board certified internist and pediatrician. 01:01:10:11 - 01:01:19:17 Erin Croyle She's also a strong advocate for people with disabilities and a mother of three. 01:01:19:19 - 01:01:25:06 Erin Croyle Kathryn, thank you so much for coming on. Can I call you Kathryn or should I call you Dr. Rooth? 01:01:25:08 - 01:01:29:20 Dr. Kathryn Rooth ERIN Of course you can call me Kathryn. We're friends. Thank you for having me. 01:01:29:21 - 01:01:43:04 Erin Croyle Thanks. Yes. Full disclosure, we're friends. But Kathryn is also just an authority on this, so I'm very excited to finally have you here. I want to start with your own journey. What made you want to become a doctor? 01:01:43:06 - 01:02:06:24 Dr. Kathryn Rooth It's kind of cliche, but I wanted to help people. As I got older and was in college, I took an interest in children with developmental disabilities and really wanted to advocate for them. I had this job where I worked for an organization that tried to integrate kids into the Boys and Girls Club who had developmental disabilities. That was my job. 01:02:06:24 - 01:02:23:02 Dr. Kathryn Rooth I really had no training, didn't know what I was doing as a college student, but I really recognized the need then and I took an interest then it kind of took off from there, like wanting to pursue something in the health care field and always kind of leaning towards becoming a doctor. 01:02:23:04 - 01:02:37:12 Erin Croyle I'm curious because with my own personal experience, I feel like my whole life I was so segregated from people with disabilities. What do you think drew you to helping people with it? 01:02:37:14 - 01:03:05:01 Dr. Kathryn Rooth I honestly, Erin, I don't know. I, I took psychology classes and so I kind of started learning about a lot of the developmental disabilities. And I thought it was very interesting and how underserved and vulnerable they were and really took an interest in that patient population that they kind of drove me in that direction. I wasn't sure if I was going to be a special ed teacher or something, but I wanted to do something with this population. 01:03:05:01 - 01:03:19:00 Erin Croyle And for so many of us, our understanding of med school, residency and beyond comes from television like Gray's Anatomy. Or if you're as old as I am, E.R. and Scrubs. So what is the process actually like? 01:03:19:02 - 01:03:46:04 Dr. Kathryn Rooth I mean, it's a long process. And first you have to get into medical school, which is incredibly hard. It took me on more than one occasion to apply to get in. And then once you're in, you do two years of lecture where you're in the classroom or you're doing a lot of basic sciences and chemistry pathology, and then your last two years, you're doing mostly rotations in different hospitals and clinics settings to kind of figure out what type of doctor you want to be, right? 01:03:46:04 - 01:04:07:16 Dr. Kathryn Rooth Because in medical school you're just becoming a doctor. And then once you figure out what type of doctor, then you apply to a specific residency. So I wanted to be an internist and a pediatrician, which was a combined residency. So then you apply to residency programs and depending on what type of specialty determines how long that training is. 01:04:07:16 - 01:04:30:03 Dr. Kathryn Rooth So mine was four years. So four years of medical school. Then you go through ...
