Racism In The Medical Field Essay

Our country should have only the best doctors, not just okay ones. I’m not saying that minority doctors will not be as good as white doctors, but there is always the chance because they didn’t get in through regular

Being both African American and female took its toll on Crumpler’s practices, yet she persisted. While focusing on her studies at the New England Female Medical College, Crumpler was ridiculed by colleagues. “She faced intense racism and sexism working as a physician in the postwar South” (Balzer). Knowing the light at the end of the tunnel would be her promising career as a physician, Crumpler kept going despite the abuse. “White doctors ignored her, made jokes at her expense and discounted her work” (“Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler”).

For example, in cases of violations of ethical guidelines, doctors were rarely caught because the rules were not strongly enforced. Skloot comments, “Like many doctors of his era, TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment”. White doctors were often not opposed to poor treatment of the minorities because they believe the research done would be beneficial to the scientific advancement around the world. Even if patients would take corrupt doctors to court, the judge usually ruled in favor of the medical professional.

According to Henrietta, physicians at the Hopkins during the 1950s and early 1960s claimed to offer to treat African American patients but in contrary, they did so in a manner that showed segregation especially from the fellow white families. Another strategy to ensure that African Americans did not receive treatment in medical institutions is that there were education and language barrier. According to Skloot, these factors kept the backs away from these institutions unless they thought they had no choice, pg. 16.

Inferior Medical Techniques and Medical Ethics in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Throughout the medical field, doctors, surgeons, and nurses have found ways to create inferior treatment while they stayed inside the rules and boundaries of the medical field. The community that suffered most from these techniques was the African American community. Doctors treated African Americans with unsterile equipment, had procedures performed that were not specified before operation, and had parts of their own body stolen for examination without proper consent. African Americans and Caucasians earned totally different treatment because to the color of their skin which caused a conflict of ethics. The medical professionals has misinterpreted, ignored,

Henrietta Lack was an African American woman born in 1920 who helped science define some of the world’s medical discoveries. Many woman were dying every year from cervical cancer. Little did she know what the future held for her and millions of other people. This situation saddens me as a medical professional because a human was treated as a specimen rather than a person. Even though this was many decades ago, I feel as though there still should have been standard practices in place that prevented this kind of behavior from those who are supposed to be trusted most, health care professionals.

Unconsciously, medical professionals make unfair assumptions about one’s character based on one’s skin color, a behavior that is surprisingly learned by medical students during their time at medical

Through an abundance of medical and historical accounts, Medical Apartheid and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks exemplify how institutional racism has shaped the lives of African Americans. From the beginning of slavery through emancipation, African Americans have overwhelmingly been at the center of unethical medical research. The vast majority of this research has been done unwillingly. For research and experimentation that received the participant’s permission, there were usually hidden elements they were unaware of. Henrietta Washington sites specific examples, ranging from experimentation on plantations to post-emancipation radiation testing on African Americans.

To say that these men were happy to see the doctors is even more disturbing of them, of course they saw these doctors as professionals trusting them with their health. This study shows how little whites thought of blacks, and willing to sacrifice them for no real

Journal Entry # 6 Miriam Zoila Perez: How Racism harms pregnant women and what can help Miriam Zoila Perez brings up some interesting points with regards to maternal health and race. I was intrigued to hear of her experience as a doula at a public hospital in North Carolina where she observed firsthand how race impacted quality of treatment. The statistic she shared with regards to deep south infant mortality rates being on par with Sub-saharan Africa is absolutely staggering and sad. To me, it almost illustrates a long held cultural belief that minorities are still considered inferior to the Arian race and that

In this article, researchers noticed that racial disparities in health care are still prevalent in the United States and the outcome and treatments that blacks and Latinos, when compared to those of white patients, receive are as big as they were 50 years ago. The article looks at several different ways that institutions, such as the University of California, San Francisco, are introducing new methods to training programs that allow doctors in training to realize their own prejudices when working with patients. The article also discusses a 2007 Harvard study that shows that the traditional diversity training used in the 80’s and 90’s was not working and reinforces and confirms racial bias. In this study, researchers studied the disparities

Sims even documented that he operated on one woman 30 times without anesthesia. After he perfected his procedure, he later performed the procedure on White women with anesthesia. While this article gives an excellent history of why Black Americans do not trust healthcare in America, it does not answer the question “How can Black people improve healthcare for

Hi Stacey, I totally agree with your point that “All healthcare workers need to be more aware of how they treat immigrants. It is important to be reminded of what these people are going through, not understanding what people are saying to them”. I also couldn 't agree more that dealing hispanic or other Non-English speaking patients are time consuming. We all know, except for Native Americans, all Americans are immigrants. Our country was built on immigrant energy and enterprise, and people from all over the world still emigrate to America.

Race should not matter when it comes to medical attention. Everyone should receive the same treatment options and level of patient care. The article also states that people who look alike act alike. I

It is important to be thankful because everyone who helps us in everyday life deserves a sign of thankfulness from us. Being thankful is a quality that every good and caring person should have. People think of you as a good person when they get polite “thank you’s” for the help they give you. Also, we should always be thankful for what we have in this world. I am most thankful for having my family, friends, and doctors, who help me have a happy and healthy life.