What strategies did graduates with disabilities in Health Sciences use to persist and not drop out their studies?

Abstract\nPoints of InterestThis article analyses the difficulties that 16 graduate with disabilities from 8 Spanish universities in the area of Health Sciences experienced during their academic career. It also shows how they overcame these difficulties, as well as their insight into their own resilience. This qualitative study used semi-structured and individual interviews. The results showed that the difficulties, the strategies to deal with them, and the opinions of the participants about their resilient characteristics are multiple and relate to both external and internal factors. The results reveal that participants’ voices from these Health Sciences degree contain useful strategies for the ­university community to promote the academic success of students with disabilities for the benefit of all students.Healthcare degrees tend to present greater challenges for students with disabilities.Students often experience exclusion during their healthcare training due to the fact that disability is based on a ‘medical’ perspective of disability.This paper analyses the difficulties and coping and resilience strategies used by university students with disabilities with a Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences to successfully overcome these difficulties.Numerous internal and external factors enable students with disabilities to successfully complete health studies.This study can contribute that including students with disabilities in healthcare degrees improves healthcare improves for vulnerable populations, as well as the relationship between professionals and patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]