Final Blog Post

Looking at the topics/ questions I wrote on my card, only one was answered through the course because I asked specific questions. The one that was answered was,”How has medicine changed since 1800s for people of color?” I believe this question was answered by all the books we read and our discussions. To me, the answer would be that medicine has evolved for the better, in the aspects of medicine and practice, for everyone. People of color have been given rights to their bodies and are able to get [most] of the care they need. However, the health care system can follow stigmas of racism. On the parts that the course fell short, I asked more of medical why reasons, such as “Was there a specific reason as to why different races had “different” blood?”

The most important things I learned in this course was how poorly people of color were/ are treated healthcare wise. From my background there is barely any stigma towards races, so this class was a shock to me on how people of color were treated in the mid-19th century to today. These are important to me because I can now look back on United States history and bring to light to others, what was trying to be hidden from people. I can also try in any profession I take, to educate people on how the United States has treated people of color, especially medically, and how we change it.

Material from the class that were most important in evolving my thinking are Examining Tuskegee, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Black Man in a White Coat, and the newspaper articles for the first essay about diseases that spread through California. Conclusions that I have made from the course, are that even though the slaves were freed, they were put into a world that was worse than what they had before. This is because once they were freed, no one knew how to help them or no one wanted to help. In the mid-19th century, people of color, specifically African Americans, played a large role in attaining knowledge about diseases and infections. Obviously, performing experiments on people without their knowledge is, now, against regulates. However, doctors did not care about people's consent, or more so doctors did not care about African-Americans consent. As for today, we learned that stigmas are still in hospitals about drug use.

One question that I have is, How can we discard the labels, stigmas, discourses, and stereotypes in the medical community? The answer I can think of is to get new people into the medical field that are not taught nor believe is racial discourses. Sadly, this can only come with time, but this can happen faster than the century it took to stop experimentation on people of color.