Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Medical Student gets Court Date

In January, DNT reported on a deaf medical school student court victory. An appeals court reinstated Michael Argenyi's lawsuit against Creighton University after it was dismissed by a judge. He sued the Omaha school for discrimination because the private Jesuit university accepted him for medical school but then refused to accommodate his learning needs. We now know his case will go in front of an Omaha jury starting the week of August 20. Argenyi has a cochlear implant but also uses cued speech. He was able to use a transcription service along with a cued speech interpreter at Seattle University as an undergrad. He earned a high GPA at the school in Washington State. While at Creighton, he was provided some assistance, but Argenyi says it was not enough. The school refused his request for interpreters and a transcription system - claiming the services were to expensive. Creighton even refused to let him use an interpreter when he interacted with patients--despite the fact that he was willing to pay for the service out of his own pocket. The school told him that he should not be using interpreters in the "real world."