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MSDCI’s Board of Directors governs the organization, sets its strategic direction and ensures the organization fulfills its mission. Members of MSDCI’s Board of Directors all have extensive experience and knowledge on disability, medical education, healthcare systems and health equity.
Zainub Dhanani is the Founder, Executive Director Emeritus, and Board Chair of Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness (MSDCI). She is the founder of the Annual Stanford Conference on Disability in Healthcare and Medicine and has been an invited speaker at disability conferences and seminars nationally and internationally. Zainub is a current medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she also received her Master’s of Science in Health Policy and an Honors Certificate in Health Professions Education and Scholarship. Prior to medical school, she attended Harvard University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in The Comparative Study of Religion with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy.
Zainub has a keen interest in the equitable design of health systems and in wellness and belonging amongst healthcare professionals and trainees. Her research focuses on the disability inclusion in medical education, healthcare experiences and access for people with disabilities, the use of digital and telehealth interventions in improving access to care for vulnerable populations, and health equity in radiology education and imaging practices
She has authored multiple publications on disability inclusion in undergraduate and graduate medical education and on ableism in healthcare. Zainub is a 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) SciTech and Human Rights FutureGen Scholar and a 2020 Building the Next Generation of Academic Physicians (BNGAP) Academic Medicine Writing Fellow. She is also a recipient of the 2024 American Association for People with Disabilities (AAPD) Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award. Outside of academia, Zainub is an avid baker and reader, and enjoys spending time in nature
Dr. Poullos received his M.D. degree at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at the University of California-San Francisco in 2002. He stayed at UCSF as a Gastroenterology fellow, but he decided to retrain in Radiology after a spinal cord injury in 2003. As an incomplete quadriplegic, he did his Radiology residency at Stanford University and completed a fellowship In Body Imaging in 2009. Dr. Poullos is now faculty in both Radiology and Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
In 2018, he founded the Stanford Medicine Alliance for Disability Inclusion and Equity (SMADIE), for which he serves as Co-Chair. In that role, Dr. Poullos advocates for students and healthcare providers with disabilities and for health equity for disabled patients. Alongside his role on the MSDCI board, he is also a Faculty Advisor to the Stanford chapter of Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness. Dr. Poullos and SMADIE have made significant contributions to the disability community, including starting the Stanford Conference on Disability in Healthcare and Medicine, drawing over 1000 participants from 39 countries. He is the Co-Host of the popular “DocsWithDisabilities” podcast, has spoken internationally about disability access in medicine, and has written and researched in the field.
He is an invited delegate to the International Congress On Disability Inclusion and Health and Disability Inclusion in Graduate Medical Education (DIGME). One of his proudest achievements is co-creating the Disability in Medicine Mutual Mentorship Program, serving the needs of disabled medicine and healthcare students and practitioners. In 2022, Dr. Poullos received the Stanford President’s Award for Excellence through Diversity. Dr. Poullos enjoys teaching radiology and inclusion at Stanford and across the nation. In his free time, he “relaxes” with his wife and 3-year-old son.
Dr. Meeks is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and Executive Director of the Docs With Disabilities Initiative (DWDI) where she catalyzes work on disability inclusion across health professions training programs. In these roles she heads the Meeks Research Lab and oversees 12 programs within the initiative.
Meeks is internationally recognized for her work on disability inclusion in Medical Education and regularly collaborates with health professions associations. She is co-creator of the social media campaign #DocsWithDisabilities, co-host of the Docs With Disabilities Podcast, co-developer of the AAMC Disability Webinar Series, and lead author and PI of the AAMC Special Report: Accessibility, Inclusion, and Action in Medical Education: Lived Experiences of Learners and Physicians with Disabilities. Dr. Meeks also spearhead’s projects at the graduate medical education level and served as Disability Lead for the ACGME Equity Matters Initiative and is co-PI of the 2024 Macy Catalyst Awards for Transformation in Graduate Medical Education project Multimedia Resource Hub for Disability Inclusion in GME. Currently, she serves as an advisor to the ACGME committee on DEI.
