People tend to ignore that unfair or unequal treatment by medical and mental health professionals still exists in our society, and this is largely contributed to the “institutional discrimination” that is upheld in a predominantly white-male society. Years of unequal practice have formed blanket biases and opinions that affect every aspect of the healthcare community, and often these practices are unintentionally upheld because they are engrained in our social framework. This reflection paper will address my recent experience with medical treatment and how stigmatization influenced the quality of care that I received.
A few weeks ago, I was having trouble breathing; bordering on chest pain. I was at my friend’s house and she suggested that I go to the hospital, just to be safe. As I waited for the doctor to arrive and make an assessment, I could hear the nurses making comments in the hallway about my “chest pain” and laughing amongst themselves. I found myself wondering why it was so hard to believe that I was having trouble breathing. Was it because of my age? Maybe my ethnicity or my race? Or, was it because of my social class? After all, we were in a hospital that was located in a low income area.
When the doctor entered the room, she first checked my breathing with the stethoscope and immediately asked me if I had been using drugs. I was shocked and responded, “No, I don’t use drugs.” She didn’t find my response believable and ordered a urine test which she claimed was to check “if anything else was going on.” When the uranalysis was complete and they found that there were no drugs in my system, they could not offer an explanation for my chest pain, other than I might be having some mild anxiety or have a pulled muscle. I was never sent for a chest x-ray and I left the hospital quite upset.
Now, I understand what it feels like to experience compromised quality of care due to discrimination and stigmatization of specific groups, and unfortunately, it is often the voiceless members of society that have no option but to accept discrepancies in treatment due to race, class, sex, and/or sexual orientation.
References
Carl, John D. Think Social Problems 2013. Pearson, 2013.
