Medicine
In ZORA. More on Medium.
How do we reconcile the Covid-19 vaccine with our history of medical racism?
An ambitious timeline released by the government this weekend promises to deliver 24 million Covid-19 vaccinations to Americans by mid-January. This is a good thing. Right? With the coronavirus spreading through the country and leaving illness and death in its wake, a vaccine should be a welcome relief and source of hope.
But talks of clinical trials and vaccination have only added additional stress to the hot mess that 2020 has proven itself to be for myself and my family. Not only am I skeptical, I’m also a bit terrified, and it turns out that I’m not alone. The Pew…
My profession often requires me to stay silent in the face of suffering and humiliation. In doing so, I found my voice—and myself.
1. So much of medicine depends on maintaining silence. Doctors are told secrets, taught over a period of years how to respond. The expression on a face transforms “stranger” into “patient.” We bear witness, not turning away from any form of suffering, even if it triggers us. This is how we protect patients.
This silence extends to all relationships at work: nurses, counselors, admins, secretaries, other doctors. One of my psychiatrist colleagues, training her residents, uses the phrase “think of yourselves as 50,000 feet above whatever’s happening.” At first, everything in me resisted this idea. By comparison, “down to earth”…
The complexities of applying, a lack of mentorship, and struggles to navigate the system are just a few of the roadblocks
Women physicians face constant reminders that they are women in a field created by males, that no matter what they say or how they dress, that they will be mistaken to be everyone except for the physician. Being a person of color in medicine comes with its own issues — from lack of mentorship and guidance to the complexities of applying to medical school and navigating the bureaucracies. “It’s a double-bind,” says Uche Blackstock, M.D., an emergency medicine physician and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, of the dual burden women of color physicians carry.
