Week 6: History Of Bias: Poc

 In the history of bias in medicine people of color are a group that have the most bias against them. From being four times more likely to die in labor compared to white people due from the inaccessibility of having bandages with the proper skin tone, people of color suffer an incredible amount in todays healthcare system. Its important to understand why this is happening and what contributed to these biases to understand how baseless they are. Bias against people of color in medicine started with colonization by the British in Africa, as well as slavery in America and Europe. The focus for this history is on countries with primarily white controlled governments because that is where there is the most bias against people of color, which bleeds into their medical systems. In America slavery put its roots into everything during the 17th century, and many powerful people such as Thomas Jefferson wrote about medicine for slaves. They wrote about myths such as that slaves and by extension people of color have less sensitive nervous systems and can withstand more pain. Medical people used this myth as justification for using black people in medical experiments. One such person was J Marion Sims, who is widely regarded as the father of gynecology. He preformed experiments studying gynecology on 14 black women, of whom he did not get consent from as these women were slaves. He preformed these incredibly painful experiments without giving them anesthesia, even though it was invented by that time. He used the common myth as an excuse, even though these women were obviously in pain which he had observed. With these experiments which lasted from 1845 to 1849 he founded almost the entire base for curing VVF. His findings are still used in studies of VVF today, despite the lack of morals and likely bias in the experiment. The myth that black people experienced less pain has started as justification for horrible actions and continued to be justification for horrible actions. And because it had been started by powerful people, it had spread into the widespread population. This caused people to believe black people were immune to yellow fever in 1792, and smallpox in the 1870's. There was even a small population who believed black people were less affected by Covid-19 in 2020. This belief has plagued many people of color in todays health care system, including people like Serena Williams who was subject to online comments regarding this myth, and was not checked for blood clots until she was forced to demand it due to bias in her doctors. Racial Segregation lasted for over a hundred years, and Jim Crow laws caused a lack of black doctors. This lack of black doctors caused more bias to spread among medical universities and set up more challenges for medical students of color today. Only 7.7 percent of medical students were black in 2016, with similar numbers today. They face more potential discrimination from teachers and other students. And due to the past many African Americans are distrustful of the healthcare system, which causes them to be less likely to encourage their children to be in the medical field. In places such as Haiti, where many doctors are black, it is easier for black parents to envision their children in medical school. In order to overcome these challenges, we must spread awareness of what has founded much of our research within the medical community, and provide more access to medical studies to people of color. This may mean more scholarships provided for black students, as well as information provided to parents about the opportunities of medical school.

sources:

After Decades of Effort, African-American Enrollment in Medical School Still Lags by Jayne O'Donnell and David Robinson, USA TODAY NETWORK, February 28th 2019 

Race and Medicine: 5 Dangerous Medical Myths That Hurt Black People By Alicia A. Wallace on September 30, 2020, Healthline 

Fact check: Father of modern gynecology performed experiments on enslaved Black women by Sarah Lynch on June 19th 2020, USA TODAY