Surveys have repeatedly shown that a large percentage of Black Americans don’t feel like their symptoms are taken seriously by the medical community. It has led to a general mistrust of medical professionals that affects how often Black people seek out well-needed care. Unfortunately, a recent study shows that the lack of trust is justified. Here’s what you need to know.
Why Your Doctor Might be Ignoring Your Pain
The main reason many doctors might not take your pain seriously rests on a recurring issue: racial bias. However, knowing the answer doesn’t mean that it’s a simple one. It’s easy to pass it off as some doctors being racist but an in-depth look at the situation shows that it can be complicated.
The way doctors make decisions can be guided by what is known as an algorithm bias. Even if the doctor isn’t working off of harmful stereotypes about Black people, they might be basing their decisions on incomplete data. Studies show that medical data generally favor white people more than people of color. As such, they might not treat Black people effectively. For example, there are certain diseases that doctors still assume only affect white people though that’s not the case. As a result, Black people with the disease go undiagnosed and untreated.
Implicit bias is the other problem that affects how doctors diagnose and treat Black patients. This kind of bias is rooted in the doctor’s erroneous belief in stereotypes that have been purported about the Black community. What’s worse is that these beliefs can still be found in some medical texts. Some of these beliefs include that Black skin is thicker than everyone else’s, that Black people have a higher pain tolerance, and that Black people’s blood coagulate more quickly.
Sometimes the bias is influenced by what the doctor has heard from other sources. For example, they may believe that Black people are only seeking drugs when they ask for painkillers or that they’re being dramatic and overstating their pain. Some white physicians have even admitted to preferring white patients as they view them to be more intelligent and more likely to follow medical advice.
Despite the strides that have been made in tackling how doctors treat Black people, up to a few years ago, a study showed that it was still a struggle. Up to 40 percent of first and second-year medical students thought that Black people’s skin was thicker than white people’s and that they were less sensitive to pain. Another study pushed the numbers higher with 60 percent of medical students believing that Black people had thicker skin. Additionally, 12 percent of them thought their Black patients had less sensitive nerve endings when it comes to pain.
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The Effect on Black Healthcare
As you might expect, implicit and algorithmic bias can have a huge impact on how well doctors treat Black people. According to recent studies, pain management is one of the areas in which Black Americans suffer the most. Believing that Black people may be drug-seeking or don’t need as much pain management as other ethnicities has resulted in them getting less or no painkillers when they desperately need them.
For example, in a simulated exercise where doctors needed to treat patients of different ethnicities, the results were dire for Black Americans. The study showed that doctors were more likely to wind down the painkillers used more quickly for Black patients. They usually kept the white patients on pain medication longer during the recovery process.
In another study, where researchers scrutinized the way doctors prescribed pain medication for different conditions, they found that Black patients were less likely to receive strong painkillers even though they needed them. In fact, in 22 percent of the cases, Black patients received no pain management at all.
With all of that, it’s not surprising that Black people are hesitant to seek out care when they need it. While some white doctors feel that Black Americans are less likely to follow their medical advice, many Black people don’t feel that their doctors are listening to the kind of care they need. The result is that the percentage of Black people who aren’t receiving adequate care is too high.
Poor healthcare means that many Black Americans are suffering in silence or are dying from illnesses that should be perfectly treatable.
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Tips for Getting the Care You Deserve
The answer to getting the right medical care is just as multi-layered as the problem. Since some facilities have acknowledged the depth of bias and how it affects the care of Black patients, there are more programs in place to address it. Those programs generally include educating doctors on the myths that drive their biases and pointing out the effect they’ve had on patients.
A lot needs to change in the medical community but some Black people are reporting that they’ve had more positive interactions with doctors recently. If any of your close friends or loved ones fall in that category, it’s a good idea to ask them which doctors they saw so you can receive similar treatment.
Of course, you can also benefit from seeing a Black doctor. Studies show that they’re less likely to ignore your complaints and treat you equally when it comes to pain management. Fortunately, some medical facilities are making more of an effort to have a diverse staff so you should be able to find a Black doctor who can treat you. If not, try seeing a Black doctor first and asking for a referral to a doctor they trust.
Finally, it’s good to bear in mind one of the things that can make pain management difficult when talking to doctors. In many cases, pain isn’t an objective item. Unlike a broken arm, others can’t easily see the source of a headache, for example. To make matters worse, people have different pain tolerance levels and not everyone can effectively describe their pain on a scale from 1-10. It can be helpful to compare your pain level to something else as a benchmark.
You may say that your joint pain is worse than when you broke your toe or that your menstrual cramps are comparable to the labor pains you felt. It also helps to list other symptoms that may have accompanied your pain such as nausea, dizziness, or fainting.
Finally, you should never shy away from seeking a second or even a third opinion. Nobody knows your body as well as you do so do everything you can to get your pain addressed.
The medical community has a long way to go when it comes to pain management for Black people because of racial bias. While they try to even the playing field, you can get the right treatment by finding Black doctors and finding more concrete ways to describe your pain.