Final Blog Post

At the beginning of this semester I knew very little about the social and medical prejudices held against African-Americans. I was ignorant of the "Black stereotype" and it's continuous relevancy in modern day America. However, after taking this course I became more cultured of the ongoing racial discourse and disparities. I can now explain, with confidence, the reason for differing healthcare treatment between minority and majority groups. Additionally, each novel that we read in this class, has contributed to my overall understanding of this discriminative treatment of minorities based on their physical characteristics. Many of the author's examined the topics of healthcare and racism, and further explained why medical care was and still is, very racially biased. Nevertheless, when in regards to African-American treatment, I have learned that this is largely due to the carried over prejudices from the era of slavery. Other racial stereotypes such as the diseased Mexican or dirty Chinese laborer, have also affected the treatment of these minority groups. However, African-Americans have felt the highest wrath of racism, especially in healthcare. They were emancipated from slavery, only to be ceaselessly discriminated against because of this past association. They have struggled to attend schools and colleges, get jobs, and receive health insurance or medical care. Further, they have consistently been maltreated in medical experimentation and studies. I have learned that these injustices can be affiliated to slavery's impact on the current innate beliefs of African-American inferiority. Moreover, I appreciate the increased understanding I now have of these cultural differences. Originally, I was bored by the readings and found them difficult to understand; however, the class discussions helped me comprehend the significance of the books and I began to enjoy reading them. Although this was a somewhat demanding course, I am glad I took it because I'm more educated about the meaning of racial discourse and disparities. Additionally, I think this knowledge will help me as a future healthcare provider. I believe this course is very beneficial for multiple reasons, especially for someone going into the medical profession. I gained a lot from this class and I would suggest it to anyone that has an interest in the topic.  

Final Blog Post

My expectations for the course - my notecard: "I'm really interested in looking at implicit biases and how they affect the quality of healthcare opportunities/services. I am also curious to see how healthcare was handled in the context of slavery and how certain illnesses were treated along with the impact it may have on the healthcare of current races and lineages.”

As I reflect on this class and its fulfillment of my expectations, I think about how far my knowledge of the black experience has been able to span into all facets of life. I was originally intrigued by this course because of its focus on medical racial disparities; a topic that is seldom realized or discussed. I now have another perspective that I can stem my arguments from. One  of the most successful parts of this class was our ability to have constructive conversation and be able to make connections between readings. I am certain that the selection of books that we were assigned helped make our discussions more meaningful and impactful. I think that people learn best when they are placed in an environment they are not accustomed to and are encouraged to have difficult exchanges; and I believe that this class accomplished just that.

I have a better understanding of how some of the injustices that were implemented in slave times have infiltrated into institutional disparities and racism. These disparities permeate the healthcare industry and make it make difficult for minority communities to qualify for healthcare and sometimes even with that qualification, they are often treated unfairly. It was interesting to see how historical events and ideals have affected the way in which institutions hinder and cripple minority communities.

This class challenged me to think bigger and to think in more complex ways about how race plays a role in medicine. While further solidifying the ideas of prejudice I already had, this class also allowed me to make new statements and comparisons based on fact. I had the chance and was encouraged to analyze the implications of specific racial narratives and experiences in a way that I had never explored until now. I hope that this class will continue to be offered because it brings to light incredibly important dialogue about current healthcare issues and their impact on marginalized groups.

Final Blog Post

When the course began, I was uneducated on the topic of history regarding race and medical care. I wondered what we would learn about the history of race and medicine that would relate to issues today. I understood that race was a component of historical mistreatment of patients in medical settings, and that people of different backgrounds experienced medical treatment through different perspectives, but I was unsure of exactly why and how these things impacted people throughout time. I also wondered what connections could be made from the historical racialized experienced of healthcare to how healthcare is racialized today.

The course addressed my question of how exactly medicine, healthcare and wellbeing were racialized in our country throughout history through the articles and novels we read, and we also had the opportunity to discuss how the historical disparities influenced those that are occurring in the present. Not only were we able to read books that provided factual evidence of historical racialized healthcare, but we were given time to discuss what we discovered through our readings, and bring to life the issues of the past by sharing individual findings through discussion with peers and through writing.

Though I gained a valuable perspective on the racialization of health in our country, I feel that my perspective is still limited. Although there were times where the group of people being discussed in class were of Chinese or Mexican descent, it was an uncommon occurrence. The racialized medical care experienced by African Americans throughout the entire lifespan of the United States, including the present, is without a doubt an important subject to bring attention to and understand. However, there are many races that have experienced and are still experiencing racialized healthcare. Perhaps I could have taken more opportunities as an individual student to research the issues that other races experience, but I do feel that it is important to have more inclusive topics of study. I would have loved to learn more about how Hispanic Americans, Native Americans or other races experience healthcare in our country. Now that the class has ended, I do however have a better understanding of how to research and learn about the historical experiences of different races on my own.

The most important things learned from this course were the development of concepts such as biopolitics and racialization. Learning about these things in a historical context enabled me to connect the concepts to the present and comprehend today’s issues surrounding race in a more knowledgeable way. I can take away from the course an understanding of how to contribute positively to future discussions of race and healthcare.

Mario C. Browne’s “Treat people better than you would like to be treated” mantra really stayed with me throughout the semester. Such a simple concept that many people in society have trouble implementing into their lives even when it matters the most, like in a medical setting. The personal experiences and knowledge that he brought to our class discussion were, to me, one of the most important segments of this course. It would be great if there were more guest speakers to give their personal stories, or to provide us with information from other perspectives of different backgrounds.

I know for certain that in my future and throughout my career after leaving Washington and Jefferson College that I will be able to take into consideration the issues of the past and how they shaped our society today, and use this knowledge to be a better citizen and be able to comprehend better the perspectives of others. As someone interested in a career in health, it is extremely important for me to have began learning how I can be a part of healing our incredibly racialized society. The takeaway from this class for me personally was not simply learning when and where certain people were affected by racialized medical care, but it was gaining a better mindset on how to understand the impact that this history has on people today.

Learning about the treatment of people throughout our own country’s history opened my eyes and lead me to the conclusion that what we learn in elementary and high school, the positive trend of things in our country going from bad to good over time to the present, is wrong. Maybe certain things have benefitted certain groups, but no one should be viewing the disparities, and heartless treatment of certain races as something of the past. We should be aware of what happened decades ago, but also aware that the present has not been completely washed clean of the inequality and racialization.

Leaving this class feeling educated on how race and medicine intersect in society, and feeling able to have a thorough conversation about the topic, but I am still left with a few loose ends. I can’t help but wonder how the class would have gone if we had talked about the experiences of races that were not discussed often in class. How have other races experienced exploitation and inequality in the medical field?

final blog post

At the start of the Race, Medicine and Society course, I was most interested in learning more about white privilege and the ways in which people show racism without ever even realizing that they were being racist. I found our conversations about white privilege, implicit bias and the ways in which people tend to say or do racist things without realizing amongst some of the most interesting. However, we learned mostly about African Americans, I can not say that I am disappointed by this, but I do wish that we would have had the chance to, as a class, learn more about implicit bias and medical malpractice in all different races and ethnicities. For this reason, I am very glad that we were given the opportunity to choose a final project on any race and any current epidemic that sparked our interest. Through this chance, I was able to learn an abundance of information on the diabetes epidemic in the Native American communities, something that had we not done this final project, I would still be clueless about.
I think that the reasoning behind my interest in learning about white privilege and implicit bias has a lot to do with the fact that I grew up in a small community that had almost no racial diversity, and because of this lack of diversity, we never learned much about different races. This course was a huge eyeopener for me. Since I grew up in such a small, white community, I always heard people say these things that they shouldn't, lines as little as "that black kid" and I never thought them to be racist at the time. Now that I have read things like "Unpacking the Invisible Backpack" and "Black Man in a White Coat", I see how such an "insignificant" statement could be so racist. Those two pieces were ones that really hit me hard and blew my mind and for that purpose, I considered them to be two of the most important works we discussed in this class. Tweedy really showed through his own personal experiences in the medical field how much implicit bias people have towards others of a different race, and through class discussion, we really showed ourselves how much privilege white people have while not even realizing it.
In conclusion, I think that the topics we learned are ones that I will never forget and am glad to have covered, as I would have never learned of them prior. I found learning about past racial experiences in the medical field to be extremely interesting and heartbreaking at the same time, however, I still feel as though learning about the current issues was the most beneficial because these are problems that our generation has the ability to change. The biggest lesson I have personally taken from this course is that we can not change all of the horrible things that went on in the past, but we can put our best foot forward with efforts to change the racial issues that are still occurring today.

Henrietta Lacks cont.

While reading Henrietta lacks  I have thought about different racialized discourses  throughout the medical field.  today in the medical field we have come along way throughout racialized medicine.  What Henrietta lacks faced in her medical treatment was not equal in any way. She was treated like a test subject without any history, background, or family.  The way she was treated shaped consent in our modern medicine. It helped us to point out what was wrong with the way she was treated, and in turn made a better medical field for us. Her cells are still used today which will honor her period in history.

Final Blog Post

My index card said: “My biggest question is how have our views of race helped better medicine, or have we run into other obstacles? Also, have we truly solved anything or tried to adapt as best we can? Are we still looking at the same issues, if so what are better/ more creative ways to solve the problem? I’m interested to see if there are any noticeable patterns, like a cycle with not being able to get resources. Also, it is interesting to see where this takes society in the future.”

Our views of race have better-helped medicine with getting African-American or any minority a doctor that they feel they can relate to and will not treat them in a distant way. I think there is a big misconception about what should be done to rehabilitate people. We just expect them to get better, yet Mario showed us that it is more beneficial to teach people how to use needles, provide them with places to get clean needles and create nutrition banks. In addition, I had a better understanding of how deeply the mistreatment of African-American bodies runs within history by reading about the Tuskegee Experiment. Through our class discussions, it seems that a lot of these issues have not be resolved but take shape in different forms of inequality. While reading about Henrietta Lacks, it is clear that the medical field has taken advantage of unaware patients, more so African-Americans. I say more so African-Americans because we learned that all people are subjected to biopolitics, but African-Americans are stuck in this cycle of lacking resources and not having their voices heard. I got a better understanding of how the black community tried to overcome these repetitive obstacles when reading about sickle-cell anemia. It was interesting to see how the illness became different images and narratives with successful people giving it attention. I think this book was the best example of the cultural aspect of biopolitics forcing the medical field to do research for the sake of this group of people. I really appreciate the perseverance and approaches that the Black Panther party took to try to better cater to their misunderstood and misrepresented community. I think the action was powerful and benefited a lot of people, such as with women’s rights. Over the year, African-Americans and minorities have been faced with a pattern of oppression and discourses but have developed creative ways, like the Black Panther party, to provide for themselves what white America could not do. It is significant that they took this stand because though it did not end this narrative about the black community, it did lessen that narrative of being this “helpless” demographic. Their self-sufficiency helped bring to light that this “welfare queen” stereotype is problematic and incorrect. In addition, Dr. Wailoo speaking was incredibly beneficial because it shows that pain transcends communication, which is an even bigger obstacle for minorities that lack a voice. I have white privilege, so it helped me to recognize that people that are not getting what they need based on the biases of those providing the care. I never thought that there needed to be a “proper” way to show pain. The novel that helped show how much white privilege that I own was “Black Man In A White Coat” because it showed the first person perspective of an African-American doctor and his struggles throughout his life to be constantly proving himself because of his race. I respect the success of other minorities and African-Americans more because I got to see the behind the scenes of how much more effort is needed to get where they than the effort that white people need to exert to get in that same position. I think the class discussions really helped to solidify and challenge ways of thinking to help gain a deeper understanding. Moving forward, I will be able to see more clearly why there are race tensions against white individuals and utilize the insight I have from this class to make more calculated decisions regarding the struggles of someone not born with the privilege that I have.

Final Blog Post

Back in February, I was curious if the bias that health care providers had, and still have, for minority groups are reflective of the past. I was particularly interested in the history of race and medicine, and if racial bias in health care was more explicit in the past—like in the Civil War. Many of the books that we read throughout the course addressed these issues. Specifically, Sick from Freedom addressed my questions regarding the racial bias in health care during the Civil War and Reconstruction. For example, false assumptions about African-American inferiority lead doctors to become “[c]onvinced of the differences between the races” which resulted in “some Union doctors [refusing] to touch sick black people” (Downs 35). Many of these perceptions, as we know, have ensued throughout history and led to great disparities in health care for minorities—like African-Americans. Perhaps, had we more time, we could have further explored the experimentation on black bodies and how the perception of African-American pain lead to health disparities in contemporary culture. As I had posted in an earlier blog post, James Marion Sims, a doctor and “father of gynecology,” conducted agonizing surgeries on enslaved women between 1845 and 1849. It is reported that Sims preformed 30 surgeries alone on a 17-year-old slave. During the surgeries, Sims refused to provide anesthesia—although available—to the enslaved patients he operated on. The false notion that African-Americans had a high tolerance to pain resulted in excruciating operations for Sim’s enslaved subjects. The analysis of these experimentations would provide an interesting connection to the modern perception of African-American pain and suffering in health care—something that we did begin to explore near the end of class.

One of the most important things that I learned, as a result of this course, was to look at everything more closely. Before this class I had not realized the extent to which racial disparities were present, and are still present, in the American health care system. As the class progressed, and has now ended, I have continually read articles and studies delineating racial bias in society and healthcare—as well as everywhere in between. I have also been more aware of the racism in the contemporary United States that greatly contribute to these disparities in health. This class was not only exceptionally intriguing, and terrifying, but was impactful in widening my perception of the world and the pitiable treatment of minority groups. This class has instilled me with the desire to do whatever I can, in any way that I can, to alleviate these disparities.

All of the readings, speakers, and activities were extremely important in shaping and evolving my thinking. The books that we read explored many aspects, throughout time, of racial disparities in the healthcare system. Some of my favorite readings were: Sick from Freedom, Examining Tuskegee, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Black Man in a White Coat, and Dying in the City of the Blues—to name a few. The speakers—like Stewart Fisk, Mario Browne, Alondra Nelson, and Keith Wailoo—greatly contributed to the development of my thinking. It was amazing, and quite surreal, to meet both the actual people who wrote the books we read and those who have made impacts on the issues that we discussed.

One of the major conclusions of the course that I have reached is that racial bias is, and has always been, a major problem in the United States. Both racial bias and racism have generated disparities in healthcare—leading to substandard care for minority groups. Racial bias has persisted in America for way too long and is long overdue for a change. My final question—how can we fix it; how can I fix it?

Works Cited

Downs, Jim. Sick from Freedom: African-American Illnesses and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2015.

final blog post

Looking back at my index card, I find myself realizing that I was very broad in what I hoped to gain from this course. I had written that I was “interested in seeing how race, as a social construct, would influence history and medicine.”  Reflecting on my statement, I realize that this was the whole point of the course. As I contemplate if the readings and information we learned answered my question, I realize that the course had taught me much more. One issue that I found to be challenging prior to finishing this course was the idea of white privilege. Growing up in a town where there is limited diversity in almost every social aspect, I never looked at white privilege as something that pertained to me. I had never thought that based on someone’s skin color, a person have these hidden advantages in society. An advantage I never thought was given to only select communities of people was the feeling that my doctors were believing me when I said I was in physical pain. For many in the African American community stigmas and stereotypes have influenced society to project them as patients who "fake" pain because they are seeking more drugs to feed their addiction. This health discourse is so problematic because it hinders people's ability  to get quality healthcare.

After analyzing Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack during one of our class discussions, I had realized that I had been given, by society, a set of invisible advantages that other minority communities were not. I found this discussion to be very eye opening and one of the most important discussions we had all semester. After discussing the idea of white privilege, we had the special guest speaker Mario C. Brown come and discuss health disparities and difference in levels of treatment given to those in impoverished areas. During Mario’s discussion, he had explained the “platinum rule.” This was the idea of a physician treating their patients how they wished to be treated. He stated that several physicians dont follow this rule because their treatments are often led by racial biases which result in poor and unfair medical treatment. He explained that racial biases were taught and shown through the medical field and that the “invisible knapsack” the white community has is extremely influential. From this discussion forward, I had learned and placed high importance on how influential white privilege really is. From our class discussions, I have concluded that white privilege has been constructed through the suppression of the African American and minority communities because of the idea of "race". Race has allowed for the white community to categorize African Americans as inferior. The idea that the African American and minority communities can be seen as inferior, “dirty” and “uncivilized” has influenced the perception of certain communities as more deserving to be medically treated better. I found the readings we did during this course, especially in the books Fit To Be Citizens by Natalia Molina and in Sick From Freedom by Jim Downs, had supported and showcased the perception of the African American and minority communities as being inferior and undeserving of fair medical treatment. These historical events displayed in these books showcase that health disparities within these communities are not due to the people within the community. These disparities occur because of the racial biases cornering these African American and minority communities into the socioeconomic position they are in.  I think that the lack of acknowledgement of the invisible knapsack of privileges by the white community has also fed into why health discourses continue today. I think that after this course, my major question is what can society do to eliminate the white privilege that society has emplaced, and how can it be eliminated within the medical field to better the treatment and care of the suppressed communities?