Go On, Fire Your Doctor.
Two thumbs up for firing a doctor who doesn’t work for you.
I started this post at the beginning of March in honor of Endometriosis Awareness Month.
Then the whole ~pandemic~ thing happened and I didn’t feel motivated to do much of anything, least of all write. And then once I got my writing mojo back a tiny bit, I certainly didn’t feel like raging against doctors and the healthcare system was in particularly good taste considering these were (and are) the people fighting to save the lives of people suffering from a virus no one knows anything about it amidst the ramblings of an unstable toddler who is telling people to ingest bleach and take a medication meant for other diseases.
Now, the uprising sparked by the murder of George Floyd has brought me back to this post, though it’s different than what I had outlined when I started writing back in March. While the mainstream conversation stemming from the protests has largely been about the systemic failings of the police, this reckoning has also spurred other conversations about the inequities that exist for Black people in all facets of American life.
Because I work in healthcare publishing, I take it for granted that everyone knows that when it comes to reproductive healthcare in particular, black women are at a MUCH greater disadvantage than white women. Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy and childbirth. Black women are three times more likely to experience fibroids. Black women are at a higher risk for a number of health conditions for a variety of reasons ranging from lack of access to care to the toll of chronic stress from being exposed to living with racism, whether overt or latent, every single day. I got these stats and you can read more about these issues here. The reality is that while I’ve been reading the stats as part of my job, many non-Black people are learning this now for the first time.
