When presented with the word consent, I think of the diverse usage of the word in different situations–consent between partners engaging in intimate relationships, consent for a company to use a photo, consent for a researcher to study an individual’s demographic data, and consent for organ donation after death. The amount of situations that require consent is overwhelming. However, respecting individuals requires consent. Blindly taking action can easily offend someone or cross their personal boundaries.
Can’t Catch A Break
From what I’ve learned these past few weeks in class is that Black people were never given a break from societal injustices aimed at them for hundreds of years. In the primary school systems, we were taught briefly about American Slavery and the Civil Rights Movement to get a general understanding of our history as a nation. However, no one really questioned other fields, like Biology and Literature, and how they are related to what we’ve learned in History class. Who knew that there are books published around the topics of medical enslavement and unauthorized experimentation. As the weeks go by, I’m sure that I’ll continue to be shocked and disgusted by what events occurred in the past, but for now, I can only hope that the torture finally ends in death. Continue reading “Can’t Catch A Break”
The Unnamed Dead
Chapter five of Harriet Washington’s Medical Apartheid opens with a description of the disappearance of Casper Yeagin, whose body was donated to the Howard University Medical School for anatomical dissection (as later discovered by his niece). Yeagin had no personal possessions when admitted to the Howard University Hospital, causing him to be registered as John Doe. His John Doe tag resulted in no one stepping forward to claim his body post mortem. Washington refers to the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of 1968, allowing unidentified or unclaimed bodies to be donated to medical schools. The idea that an unidentified body could be donated to a medical school is unfamiliar and surprising to me. While I understand this Act allows for a way to dispose of bodies without them going to “waste”, it led me back to Monday’s class discussion on the display of Fortune’s bones in a museum and if that is truly what Fortune would have wanted for his body. Continue reading “The Unnamed Dead”
Rolling through “Southern Discomfort”
“I have heard that the Masters beat and scourge them most cruelly. But I have not seen anything of the kind, nor do I believe that it occurs very often. For the southern people as class are Noble minded kind hearted people, as can be found in any country…”
I am appalled by the idea that there were people who thought of slaves in such an ignorant manner. It’s as if white people during that time were in denial of the fact that there were enslaved human beings that were treated brutally by the majority of the people that came from the same race and culture. The mentality that is depicted shows that white people thought that everything was fine because so much was completed for them. No matter how the slaves were treated, their lives were filled of contentment due to how well they were treated.
It’s like when we disregard the fact that there are people dying of hunger on a daily basis or other problems going on in the world. But, because we don’t see it or hear enough about it on the news. We continue to live upon our routine on a daily basis because compared to them we’re more than well off. We know its going on but then we start a ton of theories and trust issues, regarding how to donate and trusting certain websites. Sometimes its just people making excuses so that they can escape being a part of a real life issue.
Another analogy would be how a lot of minorities accept the fact that the majority of people that are incarcerated happen to be African American and Latino. We know and accept this statistic or phenomenon because many African American and Hispanic households are affected by this being such a popularly known conversation in certain communities.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html
I’d honestly even like to compare this to “To kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, where Atticus goes out of his way ( during the 1960s) to protect a black man who was accused of raping a farmers daughter that he worked for. Whether or not you know something is true, it’s your responsibility to cut the curiosity and attempt to find out whats actually happening if you care about social issues or injustices.
-Evelyn J Mendez
Being Skeptical of Medical Professionals
“The tragedy of illness at present is that it delivers you helplessly into the hands of a profession which you deeply mistrust”- George Bernard Shaw
In the science departments at Geneseo you will often here the professors telling you to always be skeptic as a scientist. I thought I generally understood what they meant, that you should always question data numbers and ask “why”. Following my reading the introduction of Medical Apartheid this quote sparked an important question to me, should you be skeptic towards medical professionals and what is the difference between being skeptical and mistrusting them? Continue reading “Being Skeptical of Medical Professionals”
A Medical First Week at Geneseo
When I decided to take this class, I knew that I wanted to gain something from this course, but I did not know how immediately the ideas brought up in class would start to connect with me. When I woke up on Monday morning, just one days into my junior year of college, I had immediate tooth pain. It was the kind of pain that keeps you up for hours at night as you switch from applying hot water for fifteen minutes to applying ice for fifteen minutes just to keep yourself busy so you don’t lose your mind or your patience. After two days of this I knew it was time to drive myself to one of the four dentists in Geneseo and found out it was a root canal Continue reading “A Medical First Week at Geneseo”
Lion Telling the Giraffe’s Story
I arrived at this class with little or no knowledge of the subject. I wasn’t sure how I would like the class since I wasn’t really interested in medicine and had only a minimal knowledge on the topic of racism (through high-school history classes, social media, and current events). My initial reaction to the class was probably more on the negative side. I wondered what could racism possibly have to do with medicine? I wasn’t familiar with the subject and we never discussed it in high school. Nonetheless, after doing research and learning about racism and medicine, and their correlation, I have grown curious and interested in this topic.
This tangent may seem slightly off topic but it actually brings me to an important point. The reason I am so uninformed about the correlation of medicine and racism may not be a coincidence, rather due to the inaccessibility of these sources. In Medical Aparthied, Harriet A. Washington describes that many of the medical records of experimentation are not easily accessible. Washington begins the novel by explaining that there has been an mistreatment of African Americans in general, but specifically in the medical field. The author goes on to list various examples of issues in medical research with African Americans. These include but are not limited to historical cases and some more contemporary.
On page 1, Harriet Washington refers to a well-known women’s doctor, James Marian Sims, who had many breakthroughs but who also had a dark past regarding medical experimentation on African Americans. Despite performing many gruesome surgeries, Sims is still praised for his medical breakthroughs and contributions to women’s surgery. Another more contemporary example of this idea is found on page 8. Washington refers to a case in which the Medical College of Georgia used stolen African American bodies for physician training. Although this was a terrible incident, it was overlooked due to the school’s prestige.
Harriet A. Washington’s introduction to Medical Aparthied conveys many crucial themes, one of which is the idea that African American’s side of the story was not well represented. Rather than portraying the abuse and records of experimentation of African Americans, the breakthroughs of upper class white doctors was magnified. A Nigerian proverb on page 8 states “Don’t let the lion tell the giraffe’s story.” Unfortunately in our world, the lion told it. Although there are many medical records, they do not account for the pain that many African Americans went through and are going through. The author also states that many of these documents are hidden away.
It’s disturbing to me that this topic is not often talked about. In a plethora of ways, it is wrong that people like James Marion Sims are glorified when they have committed such monstrous acts. Although it isn’t the most lighthearted topic, it is imperative to address the evident mistreatment, abuse, and experimentation of so many innocent people.
A Desperate Need for Change
There is no single story or event that defines a person’s life. Instead, we have countless stories that define who we are. Unfortunately, today we live in a society where people easily point fingers, or are quick to stereotype. The problem is that these stereotypes prevent people from knowing the whole story. I thoroughly appreciated Chimamanda Adichie’s Ted Talk, especially with some of the recent political events. Adichie says that we are always quick to blame a corrupt or tyrannical group for any problem that may occur. Continue reading “A Desperate Need for Change”
Why I Fear False Prophets
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”
In learning more about the disgusting history of racism in America, the above quote by George Bernard Shaw springs to mind. Considering the gruesome and inhumane pseudo-scientific practices that governed the eugenics movement in this country before and after the civil war, I find the wisdom of his words hard to deny. As a member of a proud, medically-minded community here at Geneseo, the abuses of those in our chosen field are particularly hard to hear about. However, to turn away from the topic in disgust and simply ignore the actions of past physicians would only make us complicate in their crimes. What disturbs me most is that those who participated in the abuses of African-American men and women did not do so secretly to hide their shame from the world, but did so openly without consequence, often to the approval of their fellow White citizens who saw them as saviors and their “patients” as little more than laboratory specimens.
The lesson we can all learn from these atrocities is just how devastating false science can be in its destructive potential. Long accused of being superstitious and irrational in their iatrophobia, the history of abuses against African-Americans gives credibility to such beliefs, ironically contributing in part to the poorer health outcomes among African-American populations. Even today, one does not have to look far in America to find dubious scientific claims being treated like religious dogma. The Anti-Vaccer movement, for example, continues to site disproved evidence concerning the link between vaccines and autism while well-meaning but poorly informed people continuously raise concerns of genetically modified food long put to rest by the scientific community.
Perhaps the worst crime committed by false science is that it competes with and often undermines real scientific study. Science is an imperfect process; a method of research that is laborious, multi-faceted, and time-consuming. It does not lend itself to sweeping proposals or sensationalism. Though often fascinating in its discoveries, it is essentially boring and struggles to compete with the emotional and often vindicating results pseudo-science provides to its adherents. Worse still, it can often masquerade as genuine science for years, as seen with the eugenics movement and persistent scientific agreement on the inferiority of non-white races. This undermines the trust given by the public to scientific endeavors and in turn makes it harder to pursue actually discovery.
There is no one solution for confronting the issue of what Churchill called “perverted science.” Although I’m sure education will help prevent the persuasion of those more skeptical students, confronting the close-minded zealotry that often accompanies pseudo-science will be much harder to overcome. Skepticism towards science helped elevate the least qualified candidate in modern history to the office of the president and has begun seeping into our institutions and poisoning the way the world views us. We owe it to ourselves and our fellow citizens to be responsible in the use and dissemination of knowledge and to work so that truth will always prevail in the face of false prophets.
The false Illusion of race
Hi!
Throughout history, there have been divisions among people based off of external qualities. Some of these qualities included skin color, eye color, hair type, etc. These qualities form categories based on race. In biology, there is no genetic code that defines what race one is. There are small variations in strains of DNA between the human species. Many experiments have been done to look for something that simply isn’t there. Continue reading “The false Illusion of race”