In the past, disability was mostly seen as a disadvantage. This meant people with disability were often excluded or kept separate from people without disability.
The charitable model: under this model, people with disability were seen as unlucky and needing pity and charity.
The medical model: this model saw people with disability as having a sickness or something broken that needed to be ‘fixed’ by doctors. It focused only on the person's body or mind, not the world around them.
In an employment context, the medical model can create a situation where the focus on a person being ‘fit’ for a job depends on fixing or curing a person’s health condition or impairment before they are judged to be ready for work. This is a problem because it focuses solely on the person with disability instead of looking at ways that the workplace could change to be more inclusive.2