Alonzo Cason
566 words
This week's topic covered and focused on health, a topic that covers a vast scope of social problems that's affecting modern society. Compared to some of the past topics we've had this one has always been a topic that most students and myself has overlooked mostly due to it not really having much to compare against some of the other more prominent topics we've discussed this semester. When compared to some of the other topics I've experienced this is one that so far to my knowledge that I've haven't been directly affected by it. With that in mind, I came into this topic with no real idea or knowledge on the topic so I went in absolutely ready to wake up to the truth. With, all the weekly topics and quizzes the required article we were assigned was "Racial Prejudice and Spending on Drug Rehabilitation: The Role of Attitudes Toward Blacks and Latinos" by Amie L. Nielsen, Scott Bonn, and George Wilson. The article (as its title mentions) looked at as the topic/issue using though racial factors. They did this to see if there is racial prejudice and discrimination in the health care system and drug rehabilitation. The article discussed at length various factors and managed to find a correlation between education. To put it in lame man's terms; the belief that rehabilitation is useless/inadequate comes down to a person's social class and key factors in their life's; namely discrimination and lack of education is the key factor in believing that rehab is useless. Its highlighted greatly when it comes to down to differing races; those who don't believe in rehab still support rehab for whites while don't support rehab for minorities. That key evidence the article found and discussed reminded me of our lecture over the topic with Prof. Kubal. He spoke about an article and some of the key evidence they were able to discover and map out. But, what stood out to me and relates to the article was when he simply said that this topic/issue all comes down to racial discrimination. That served as a "brief synopsis" for myself while reading this and the 2nd article. The next article I read titled "Racism and Discrimination in Health Care: Providers and Patients" by Monique Tello, MD. The article was more of a conversation and retelling of personal experiences in racial discrimination in health care. The article interviewed several former minority hospital patients who recalled their experiences while seeking medical attention and how health care providers looked at them like "scam artists" and "fakers" while they were in serious pain yet, those same health care providers were paying extra attention to the more "pleasant-looking" patients. I mentioned it earlier that I've yet to experience any sort of racial discrimination when it comes to health care… so far. Reading those articles and seeing the clear discrimination and issues in the social aspect of health care surely establishes this as a true social problem that needs a greater look at since this is completely wrong. Doctors are supposed to be the individuals who are willing to do what needs to be done to save a life no matter what an individual may look or act they're supposed to help save lives. But how can you or rather we trust someone who rather save the life of a person with the lighter complexion?
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