Oftentimes black people's pain goes unnoticed, or it is dismissed in the hospital setting. Their pain is not always considered an urgent matter, it may be painted as hysteria because of the misconceptions made about African Americans. A study conducted in 2016 revealed that nearly half of the first and second year students believed that black people had thicker skin than white people and overall perceived them to feel less pain (Rao). These inaccurate beliefs cause numerous life-threatening issues for black people but especially women of color. Many black women have entered the hospital and been treated like their pain was irrelevant in the eyes of their medical professionals. They were treated like they were overreacting, they were treated like they were drug addicts, and they were treated like they inflicted the harm that brought them here. " Black patients were 40% less likely to receive medication for acute pain compared to white patients (Rao)." Many of the black patients who come in suffer for hours, instead of the pain being handled immediately; they are required to wait for a solution to their pain because it is often dismissed. I want to be an advocate for African Americans entering the hospitals. I want their voices to be heard, respected, and acknowledged when they enter a hospital because their input matters just as much as anyone else. I want to be the representation for the younger generations to show that black women should be in the health care field.
To make my community a more equal, inclusive place for all I would use my education and experiences. I would analyze the history of African Americans in the medical industry; I would work towards bringing awareness on the history so the medical industry can provide proper, equal assistance to all people. I would work under other medical professionals and learn how the system works until eventually opening my own practice. In my own nursing practice, I will promote inclusivity by making sure my clients' voices are heard in my practice. I would travel to hospitals all over the county, teaching them updated procedures so more lives can be saved. Procedures like taking classes to be more emotionally intelligent not only for the patients but for the health care workers too. I want these practices to become a foundation in the future generations medical system and continue to flourish even when I am gone.
Introducing more awareness and actually working towards eliminating prejudice actions in medicine. Prejudice in medicine stops African Americans from visiting the doctor, eventually causing long term issues that could have been resolved earlier. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health (OMH) and the U.S. National Library of Medicine, my community is more prone to diabetes, sickle cell anemia, cancer, heart disease, stroke, asthma, pneumonia, and HIV/AIDS. I have seen first hand in my community how not having a doctor who you can express your feelings and thoughts to can cause mental, emotional, and physical distress. I want to use my experiences and education to create a healthy, cohesive relationship with people of color and their health care physicians. Too many of their voices have gone unheard, this has caused many people to lose their lives and this should not be the case. My community deserves to be properly treated and cared for like any other patient. African Americans should be able to trust that the people in charge of making sure they recover from their ailments, have their well-being in mind.
While I do not plan as working as a doctor, I do want to be a nurse. To specify, I want to work as either a labor and delivery nurse, a women's health nurse, or a pediatric nurse. I am extremely passionate about aiding others and I am confident that as an African American woman, I will have a lot to offer to patients. During my previous Health Science degree, I did a lot of research regarding infant and maternal morbidity and mortality. I'd like to explore what I can do as a nurse to improve the figures of infant and maternal morbidity and mortality, particularly amongst African American families, as they are disproportionally affected.
Infant and maternal morbidity and mortality can stem from a variety of factors, but the most I have seen tend to be involving social determinants and medical mistrust, which is another thing I am very passionate about. There is a lot of mistrust in healthcare, especially amongst the African American community and this is due to a variety of factors. These factors could be from widely known unethical experiences, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the exploration of African American Slaves, or even experiences that people have been though personally with their healthcare providers that they just were not comfortable with. Although medical mistrust is not talked about a lot, it is a very important topic.
Medical mistrust is a very important topic because this is something that influences the satisfaction of a patient and their overall experience with medical care. If patients are not comfortable and trusting of their healthcare provider, it has a direct effect on their health outcomes. After unsatisfactory care from a provider, patients are then less likely to follow the providers orders in terms of recommended treatments and it can deter them from seeking additional medical care in the future, which overall impacts their health negatively for the future.
These things are very important to me and is something that I am passionate about because this is something that affects my population and this is even something that could even affect me in the future. Relating it back to why I want to be a nurse, as an African American female, I completely understand the hesitance with seeking medical care. I have personally experienced care from providers that was subpar at best and it made me not want to seek medical care anymore. Having to pay a high copay to see a medical provider that is showing you that they do not care really does deter you from seeing them again. I never want my patients to feel like this. I want to be that person that gives patients that trust back and show them that the healthcare field is constantly evolving and that we are only becoming more diverse and improving.
Thank you for this opportunity,
Brianna Williams
