//originally posted on the Anatomy Acupuncture IG page 6/1/20//
I hope it’s obvious. But in case it’s not – and at the risk of coming across as performative since I rarely post here – I want to be abundantly clear about where I stand both personally and professionally.
Black lives matter to me as a healthcare provider and as a human. I hope they matter to you, too.
Much like many other institutions in this country, the medical system is inherently racist ( this predates the formation of the United States – the founders of ‘modern medicine’ as we know it were notoriously ethnocentric and intolerant). You don’t have to look hard to find the ways in which medicine has looted, exploited, misused and under-served Black people and their bodies (for a start take a spin on the internet to see how medicine in the US has systemically supported segregation, and if you’re not familiar with the Tuskegee experiment or Henrietta Lacks, please make yourself).
The aftermath of this history is that still, quite literally TODAY, Black people are extremely discriminated against in healthcare. The inequities in both access and quality of care in Black communities is a direct result of this inherent bias. A mountain of research shows that the anti-Black racism within the healthcare system leads to disproportionately poorer outcomes – in life expectancy, infant mortality, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, cancer and currently covid-19 related deaths.
Black patients are less likely than their white counterparts to get appropriate cardiac care or undergo bypass surgery, they are less likely to receive a kidney transplant or dialysis, they are under-enrolled in clinical cancer trials despite being much more likely to be afflicted by cancer, and doctors are less likely to refer Black patients for testing when presenting with covid-19 symptoms. This is a product not of overt racist individuals (though they’re problematic too), this is a product of an implicitly biased system of medical education and healthcare.
Not to mention – experiencing racism itself is a huge public health concern – Black people are at an increased risk of chronic physical and psychological conditions such as depression, cardiovascular disease and hypertension because of it.
All this to say, none of this is new. It’s appalling and heartbreaking and still happening. The systems are inherently flawed. Medicine needs to do better – this is unacceptable. WE need to do better. To that end I’ve been donating to national and local causes to create change both now and on-going and I am continuing to listen, read, and learn from Black people about what is needed and how I can do less harm both as a clinician in a bad system and as a human who experiences white privilege. I hope you’ll join me.
