Deaf and blind doctor explains how she communicates with patients and the misconceptions

A doctor who was registered as blind and deaf from birth has become the first deafblind doctor to graduate in the UK, as she speaks about finding her own way to do things.

There are few inspiring stories out there at the moment, and sometimes it feels like all we hear about are the challenges of life but not overcoming them.

Thankfully, there are people like Alexandra Adams who share their stories of hope, dedication, and strength for us all to celebrate.

Alexandra has become a known name across the pond after beating extraordinary odds to finish her medical school degree and, even after spending 17 months in hospital during the Covid pandemic.

Despite having to take two and a half years out of school, she's now graduating, and revealed that her disabilities don’t stop her.

In fact, they have even helped her spot conditions other colleagues could miss due to her heightened sensitivities in some areas.

Alexandra Adams is UK's first deafblind doctor to graduate from medical school (ITV)

Speaking on the UK’s ITV This Morning show, Alexandra explained the moment she finally received her doctorate.

“Honestly, it's been incredibly Even now, it's incredibly surreal. Um, I just can't believe it. It's been 10, 11 years. So, I think you spend so much time thinking, ‘am I ever going to get to the end? Am I ever going to achieve this?’ And yeah, it just seems absolutely mad.”

She went on to explain how her parents didn’t treat her any differently than other children, and after a year-long stint in hospital as a teen, decided she wanted to also help others.

She said: “But it was by being in the hospital that you actually thought, you know what, this could be my vocation. This could be what I want to do.”

“I've always said this; my disabilities haven't been the obstacle in my medical degree. It's been the perceptions of other people,” the new doctor admitted, revealing that ‘discrimination has been a big hurdle’, which she ‘anticipated’.

However, she said ‘disability comes on a big spectrum’, noting that she can still communicate with her patients.

“So even though I've got severe to profound hearing loss; I can like I am having a normal face-to-face conversation using a stethoscope,” she explained, and brought a Bluetooth stethoscope to demonstrate how she does it via connecting it to her hearing aids so that she can hear what she needs to.

Calling it ‘mind-blowing for the little patients’, she said they ‘honestly think I've got super hearing.’

As for what she can see, she said her ‘sense of touch and feel is naturally heightened’, which makes things like touching for the right vein, something she’s more than capable of doing thanks to her increased awareness of those senses.

She explained: “So, I've had a number of times where people come over and say, ‘Look, we've got a really difficult patient, you know, with really swollen arms. Can you, you know, come and, come and see if they can get a canula?’”

Alexandra explained that she starts her new job as a doctor next week, and cannot wait, but being referred to as Dr Adams has been hard to get used to.