Independent Research Week Eleven, Post Two (Synthesis & Connection)

 Health Disparities in Medicine Based on Race - Richard Garcia

    The Tedx Talk presentation of Richaed Garcia broke a barrier when he connected the ideas of jazz and health inequities throughout the United States, that plagued people of color. A Latino man who attended Berkely and now works as a licensed pediatrician and executive policy maker in the field, Garcia has dedicated his life to his true passion of understanding the connections between race and health care. 

    The talk begins with the introductions of many shocking realities that plague the American health care system. For black infants, the mortality rate is more that two times higher than that of white infants. In hospitals, black men experiencing chest pain wait longer on average than white men to receive an EKG. Overall, Black and Latino men with long bone fractures wait longer for lower doses of pain medication than their white counterparts. Black children suffering from apendicitus go without pain medication at higher rates than white children.  

    

    To quote Toni Morrison, these aren't issues I'm talking about, "this is flesh I'm talking about." These are not far-fetched ideas, but rather the realities that BIPoC communities have to face every day that they interact with the health care system in any capacity. However, it is important to understand that race is not a medical problem, but rather an American problem. When doctors are being educated on new patients or arrivals, they are immediately told their age, race and gender, as if race should impact the way that the doctor interacts or diagnoses the individual in question. Too often, people in medicine believe that Black people have higher pain tolerances than their white counterparts, which is a notion that has existed back before slavery. This blatant racism has established a role in medicine, and should not be overlooked. 

    To solve this, there must be more diversity in health care workers, in order to emphasize the humanization of patients that interact with the health care system. However, this is something that has been pushed for for more than a century, dating back to 1919, and obviously, it is not enough if the same issues have continued to persist throughout society. To quote Fannie Lou Hamer, " I am sick and tired of being sick and tired," and people throughout all disciplines of medicine and health care work must educate themselves in order to see how they contribute to the problem, and how in the future they can contribute to the solution.