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In Jackson, Mississippi, 1961, there was a signed ordered by the police stating “WAITING ROOM FOR COLORED ONLY” in hospitals and medical centers to segregate between the blacks and whites. According to “Civil Rights and Healthcare: Remembering Simkins v. Cone (1963)”, during this time period, African American doctors, dentists, and surgeons were only allowed to practice on other African Americans.

Of course during that time, the majority of white people thought African Americas were filthy and didn’t want much to do with them unless they were serving them. Of course medical practice is very serious so they’re only going to trust “their kind.” If a sign like this is up, it just shows that they didn’t even want to sit with the “colored group.”

Eventually, “the United States Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case) deemed that the two hospitals’ policies of racial discrimination for both patient admissions and visiting physician staff privileges violated the fifth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution.”

This was a positive changed for the “colored group” in that they didn’t have to feel so secluded and treated as if they were animals. In reading the article, “The difference between blacks and animals”, Alice white states, “animals were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites.”

When I that sign I felt like it related so much to that quote because in this day and age you only see signs like that if “NO DOGS ARE ALLOWED” in to a store or an area in a park. It just shows how much white people back then belittled African Americans just because of their complexion.

As I write my last blog post, I can’t help but reflect on the course as a whole and what I’ve learned. One of the major problems discussed during class was the negative effects and results that derive from medical voluntourism. Before going on my trip to Ghana, I knew that the trip would consist of me participating in research and interacting with the people in the communities I visited. I was required to go to orientation and learn about what to expect when visiting this country. I was also required to take this online course and be certified in the understandings of extramural research. The online course was required for everyone going on the trip to understand the importance of “protecting human research participants.” Looking back, I can see why Professor Muench expected us to do all these things because our actions can mean good, but cause more harm to the people. Going to Ghana has proven to be one of the best experiences in my life and happy to see now that I wasn’t one of those people going in hopes of getting hands on experience on the people without proper training. Although I eventually plan on working in the medical field, I learned just as much interacting with the people living in these different communities. I was able to tie back what I saw and experienced from each village to major issues that deal with sanitation, urbanization, and neglected tropical diseases. From this course, I was able to reflect on my previous actions and ideas I carried with me throughout the trip. Going to Ghana, I was given the opportunity to learn from the people just as much as they could learn from me. Professor Muench did a great job instilling in our heads that the Ghanians aren’t below us and the theme of interdependence was brought up numerous times throughout the trip. Looking back, I realized that Ghana taught me just as much about myself and what I want to do in the future as far as working in the medical field. Ghana wasn’t the type of study abroad in which I searched for saviordom. I learned just as much if not more from exploring the country and interacting with the people than I would have if I went with a quest for experience or the pursuit of an emotional high. Going to Ghana through the biology department at SUNY Geneseo, I observed the community’s actual needs and had to reflect as to why people were living the way they were. Although Professor Muench does a great job at avoiding to display this “white savior complex,” there are still other programs and organizations out there that will advocate and represent medical voluntourism in a positive light instead of focusing on the harm that comes with it.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a panel of students that talked about their struggles on the SUNY Geneseo campus and the discrimination they face with their sexual orientation. The event was called Trans?Fine by me! The event was held after an incident that occurred with a sociology professor having made offensive comments about the LGBTQ+ community. Continue reading “Trans? Fine by me!”

This is the end. The semester is wrapping up and finals are around the corner. However; this is also a time for reflection. A time to recollect our thoughts and mull over what we have learnt through the semester. Indeed, the Fall 2017 English 101 class covered interdisciplinary issues spanning from race to medicine through the lens of literature. We read books/articles/short stories spanning genres from science fiction to non-fiction. Nevertheless, our conversation would always be in tandem with relevant issues effecting today’s world. Issues spanning systemic racism, the dangers of medical voluntourism to sustainability. Throughout the course, we were able to tie ideas and concepts back to unseeming ideas and justify our findings using textual evidence. Valuable skill earned: To be able to realize interconnectness. I remember participating in the final collective brainstorming exercise and how I wanted my statement to reflect all of the questions I hoped would remain with me and my fellow coursemates. I recorded “intersectionality is a profound concept that appears and will always appear in our daily lives. Everything is connected and nothing lives in isolation. Through every sphere of life, racism can cut through often as intentional and even so directional towards a selected group of people. Even as mere fiction and fabrication, race is perpetuated across spheres like law, medicine, business, government across others. At the end of the day, can we connect the dots? Can we recognize and analyze the staying power and hubris that comes with privilege? Is medical apartheid a real concept even in today’s world? How do we know and how do we call it out with supporting evidence? At the end of the day, epistemophilia as an adopted methodology to finding solutions should/will be a resounding answer” (Adaeze, 2017. )

However, I have come to realise that some of these questions might have no answers. still, I will continue to ask more questions while reflecting on previously asked questions. The world is not black and white hence it’s complexity. Singular views should be discouraged and multiple perspectives should be employed to issues. Perhaps, getting closer to realised solutions is more important than merely seeking answers. Call out systemic racism and advocate for social justice in whatever capacity you can. Recycle and try to save the planet. Untrained medical students should think twice about programs offering to let them volunteer and perform medical procedures in a developing country. In order to advance intellectually and work as best as you can; employ critical thinking and reflection strategies. While critical thinking requires thinking deeply, identifying problems and proposing solutions; reflection helps an individual reach into their capacity after the noise dies. Just like monks reflect and meditate to gain a higher learning and to get to a higher state of spirituality , writers need to reflect to reach higher states of their creativity and higher learning of themselves and their skills as writers. Reflection is like a healing balm that soothes the mind while enhancing writing with its valuable outputs and results. This is not the end. We are continually learning and gaining awareness on important issues happening around us. It is not enough to merely listen but it is essential to process and reflect on what has been heard. If learning never stops; then reflection has no limit. Scour through your mind for the seemingly insignificant yet useful pieces, connect the dots as much as you can and let your mind soar. There is no height too impossible to achieve if an individual puts their mind to it. Reflection: Put your mind to it.

Continue reading “Bill Mckibben and the reality of our actions”

Upon swearing the Hippocratic Oath, graduating medical students bind themselves to an ethical code that ensures the overall progress and welfare of their patients. The American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics (1996 edition), “has remained in Western civilization as an expression of ideal conduct for the physician.” (Lawson, 2010.) Today, most graduating medical school students swear to some form of the oath, usually a modernized version. (Pbs.org)  However, medical ethic is still an important and touchy matter in the health field. Medical ethics is derived from Ethics; a moral philosophy that came about with the Sophists of Greece. Even as physicians have long since held themselves to a moral code, there have been rogue physicians who have subjected individuals to unethical experimentation and research. In Medical Apartheid, Harriet Washington details the systemic and medical abuse, discrimination meted out to African-Americans since colonial times. She details the appalling and unethical invasive experimentation and research practices performed throughout history to African-Americans. She opens her book by talking about James Marion Sims, a 19th-century surgeon who is venerated as a selfless benefactor of women for devising ways to repair severe vaginal injuries occurring during child birth. She talks about how he is celebrated despite the fact he honed his skills by performing scores of painful operations on the genitals of black slaves without amnesia. He refused to give them ether even when it was available but gave them to white women. A physician who “cut his way to the top”. His African-American human subjects were mere guinea fowls in his ploy for recognisance in his field. In a twisted Rob-Peter-To-Pay-Paul  manner, he violated every ethical code possible. In this case, Martin Luther King’s quote “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” does not hold water. These women never had justice.  Continue reading “The Principle Of Not Choosing An Irreversible Path When Faced With Uncertainty”

How amazing that people are donating their bodies to science when they pass away? I think it’s incredible and I think I would like to donate mine in the future. However I would prefer to have it is donated to Medical Schools. One of my coworkers took human gross anatomy as an undergraduate at Rochester Institute of Technology. Initially I was pretty upset with her because I felt like students in undergrad would not appreciate the donation to its full potential. I have done dissections in my anatomy lab of a cow eye and sheep brain. I know that people often don’t appreciate those but I’m not sure how comparable that to a human body. My coworker then told me she decided that she doesn’t want to get into the medical field anymore the semester after. Continue reading “Use of Cadavers in Undergraduate Schools”

Continue reading “Alabama’s Black Belt”