Essay On The Color Of The Physician's Skin

The main purpose of this article was to unexamined biases, to see how much they contribute as well as to address ethnic and racial in health care disparities. Biases can be referred to as favoritism, a favor of one and against another, very systematic and differing by racial and ethnic groups. Many psychologist has turned their focus and studies on common biases, which biases influence medical decisions and interaction.

In doing so, he pays particularly close attention to black patients and their relations with health care policies and practices. Smedly maintains that blacks are not only the victims of, inpatient and outpatient treatment, racial policies, and other services but also the victims of its consequences. He argues that many health care administrators are agents to a system of inequality that support provider and administrator biases, geographical inequalities, and racial stereotypes (Smedly 2012).

A notable discrepancy exists between health care received by the black population in comparison to the white population. However, the foundation of health care inconsistencies has yet to be firmly established. Instead, conflicting views prioritize causes of health care disparities as due to social determinants or due to individual responsibility for health (Woolf & Braveman, 2011). Emerging literature also indicates that health care providers propagate disparities by employing implicit biases (Chapman, Kaatz, & Carnes, 2013; Dovidio, Fiske, 2012). This paper aims to discuss black health care disparities as a function of socially constructed beliefs that both consciously and unconsciously influence health care professionals practice.

Providers possess a multiplicity of roles in today’s society. It is typical that patients trust their physicians and should feel comfortable seeing them; however, not all communities can feel this way about their providers. Iatrophobia is prominent within the African-American community, and a history of medical abuses against this community may have a link to such present-day health inequalities as shorter life spans and higher infant mortality rates than Whites.

Racial classification has a possibility to expose an individual to racism and health disparities by influencing access to care, scope and quality of care, and overall health outcomes. In the United States of America, the secret codes of socioeconomic status are deeply spotted by race, causing the racial differences in socioeconomic status and becomes the main element to racial differences in health and health care (Kennedy, 2013). Many studies have indicated that African-Americans distrust medical practices and medical professionals due to a long history tied to the unethical treatment

Like previously stated, there has been a vast history of racial issues particularly in the medical field. These issues have led to minorities, especially African Americans, to not trust medical professionals and procedures. A study found in the Archives of Internal Medicine gives shocking results by stating that “African Americans were far less trusting than whites of the medical establishment and medical researchers in particular. African Americans were 79.2 percent more likely to believe that someone like them would be used as a guinea pig without his or her consent” (Clark 118). There are many cases in the past which would make a minority feel neglected and like a “guinea pig”. For instance, Henrietta Lacks, the main character of Rebecca Skloot’s book, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. Her doctors were shocked at the terrifying rate her tumor was growing (Skloot 117). Her cells were taken from her cervix and they were distributed world wide without her or her family’s consent. The distribution went on for years even after her death

Racial segregated healthcare is not new in America it can be traced back to beginning of slavery. “The emergence of theories such as polygenism, and movement such as anthropometry, phrenology, and craniometry in the early 1800’s as early as the Jim Crow laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 only helped to reinforce these disparities.” (Source 3) Also between 1876 and 1965 laws are created equal facilities for minority’s black and white creating it prohibited for minority physicians to follow or receive education in white facilities. (Source 3) In 2011 reports on healthcare quality and disparities, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) finds that low-income individuals and people of color experience more barriers to care and receive poor quality care. (Source

With such glaring evidence on structural racism within the medical field, it is not surprising that people of color face disparities.

In the United States society is well aware that hispanics have been treated with a negative attitude in the health care providing services. Just like anybody else no matter what race they are, they should have the same treatment. This situation needs to be more acknowledged and better controlled. White patients have received better quality of care than any other race including black americans, hispanics, american indians, and asian patients. One might argue that the health care providers are free to express their opinion however they like, but just like any job these health care providers have to treat everyone the same and make them feel comfortable. “ Negative implicit attitudes about people of color may contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care.” In many cases health care providers have implicit bias in terms of positive attitudes towards whites and negative attitudes towards any other color. “Fifteen relevant studies were identified through searches of bibliographic databases and reference lists of studies that met inclusion criteria.”

The report said “The enquiry believes institutional racism is present throughout the NHS and greater effort is needed to combat it. Until that problem is addressed, people from black and minority ethnic communities will not be treated fairly. The cultural, social and spiritual needs of the patients must be taken into account.

This type of subconscious prejudice is absolutely wrong and should absolutely not happen because as healthcare professionals are the advocates for all patients and treating them equally. By so doing every patient in the case scenarios in the book should have received the same equal treatment as the others. 4. Does a healthcare provider’s cultural competence effect/influence the care a patient receives and contribute to health disparities?

Jessie Williams plays a leading role in today’s hit show Grey’s Anatomy, and acts as a doctor in the show who goes by the name Jackson Avery. The show has over 8.22 million viewers, and racking up 13 seasons, thus far (Grey 's, 2016). With that being said, Jessie Williams is a well-known actor that is being watched by millions of people. On June 26, 2016 Jesse Williams was honored for the humanitarian award, due to his efforts to promote social change at the BET Awards show (Acceptance, 2016). Jesse took forth to the stage and utilized his social status to deliver his speech about the importance of black lives and injustices. Throughout Jesses speech he discussed various prevalent issues regarding police brutality, inhumane deaths in African American communities; through ethos, pathos and logos, Williams effectively promotes a demand for social change.

The practice of medicine has been shaped through the years by advances in the area of diagnostic procedures. Many of these advances were made possible by scientific breakthroughs made before the 20th century. Modern medicine arguably emerged. Both normal and abnormal functions (physiology and pathology) were increasingly understood within smaller units, first the tissues and then the cells. Microscopy also played a key role in the development of bacteriology. Physicians started to use stethoscope as an aid in diagnosing certain diseases and conditions. New ways of diagnosing disease were developed, and surgery emerged as an important branch of medicine. Above all, a combination of science and technology underpinned medical knowledge and

The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.

There are different situations that may arise in nursing with regards to racism. There may be nurse-patient racism, patient-nurse racism, patient-patient racism, and nurse-nurse racism. All of these types of scenarios that may present themselves do not result in the best care for a client. Being exposed to racism in the health care field can lead to stress related to making ethical decisions. A racist mind-set may be articulated through negative remarks about culturally different clients. Shaha (1998) states that According to Leininger, nurses’ ethnocentric attitudes towards culturally different clients may result in difficulties in nurse–client relationships. Such difficulties may have an ethical–moral dimension. In maintaining an ethnocentric attitude towards these clients, nurses may violate their dignity and autonomy (Leininger, 1991 as cited by Shaha, 1998). In the first type of scenario, if a nurse is racist towards a patient they may not take their cultural beliefs or rituals seriously, which my damage the trust you have with that patient. A nurse needs to be culturally aware when dealing with different races. Leninger (1991) describes it best when she writes that transcultural nursing is a comparative study of cultures to understand similarities (culture universal) and differences (culture-specific) across human groups. Furthermore, Leininger (1999) illustrates that our biases and prejudice usually come