Hello, Can Someone Help Me Please?

Kayceè L. Sara, LCSW 

Guest Contributor

**I am not a medical doctor. This article does not substitute medical advice. Please seek professional trusted medical advise shall the need arises.**
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Have you been at your primary care physician’s office, your local emergency room and or your local urgent care—and just felt unheard, ignored, isolated? Better yet, have you been sent home feeling that you were not heard, supported and or treated in the manner that would actually solve the primary area of concern that you were seeking medical attention for? Did you look around and see other ethnicities, socio-economic classes and or genders being helped while you just were left on “ignore” or told “we can’t find anything wrong here, Ma’am”?

​Let me share a rather personal story with my sistahs (and brothers too). When I was in the 10th grade, I felt so incredibly sick. I remember feeling nausea, dizzy and being in severe lower abdomen pain. I went to my primary care physician with my mother due to my chronic complaints to no avail but to be sent away. The narrative being pushed—“It’s your weight, if you lose weight you won’t have these pains”. A few weeks STILL experiencing the consistent nagging “out of this world” pain. I was rushed to the ER—admitted into emergency surgery because my white blood cells were so elevated that I could have coded from the infection looming in my young body.
 
I recall having an emergency surgery to take out my appendix. I was hospitalized for a small amount of time. I was released very shortly after. Once, I returned to my post op—I was secretly told away from my parents that I also had a “twisted fallopian tube” that was “untwisted” during this emergent appendix surgery. I am now 38 years old, I have severe menstruation pains, on and off fibroids and cysts as well and hormonal issues. Not to mention, most women’s greatest fear—I could be barren which has never ever been discussed in detail with me. But guess what is ALWAYS discussed with me, MY WEIGHT.
 
These themes have been a part of my African American female life since I was 15 years old. I cannot help but to always re-visit the disregard I’ve ALWAYS felt while interacting with the western medical care system. If my weight did not make discriminatory practices extremely dramatic. My racial background always rang supreme.
 
In a June 2020 Fortune.com article—“While Black people in the US are dying from the COVID-19 pandemic at a disproportionately high rate, this national health crisis underlines an even grimmer status quo; Black Americans are also much more likely to die from far more common and long standing health problems every day. Black women are at particularly high risk for heart disease and strokes and are at least three times as likely to die as a result of childbirth as white women.” This article goes on to say—“The reasons behind this awful disparity are wide-ranging and include systemic problems both within healthcare and far beyond it.”
 
This article further mentions- “Black women, all women across races have a very hard time being taken seriously about their own bodies due to a preserve sexism”—Tina Sacks an assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare and Author of Invisible visits: Black Middle class women in the American Healthcare system. She goes on to state— “When you compound that with racism, you have a particularly toxic mixture that Black women are facing”.
 
This is a discussion that has been tossed around for quite some time. Now with a raising of hands, How many of you have experienced this socioeconomic strata that clearly exists in medicine and beyond?? Sis (and bro)-I see you. We see each other. The looming question remain—how do we build a personal health care system that can really ensure our needs as women of color are met so can we feel seen and heard? Here are a few tips that I use to help myself identify the best medical care and help my loved ones obtain the support they require:
 

1. Do your best research (google names, look on your medical groups’ website and ask your friends who happen to be in your medical group) for referrals to build your primary care team. As for myself, my parents and I all have the same primary care physician and we can compare, evaluate and identify the level of care that we are all receiving from this physician.
2. Fill out those pesky surveys that your medical group sends to your home and or your email. Those do help other people obtain the care they deserve as well those surveys give you a voice. Use it!
3. When you feel even a tiny bit disrespected, violated and or unheard—Do not find yourself afraid of using your medical groups’ internal compliant process aka that “good ol’ grievance”. Trust me when I say—Dr’s, nurses and or other para-professionals do not want these negative remarks in their personnel files. Changes will follow!
4. When you are receiving complex or even simple feedback and or diagnosis—TAKE NOTES and ask questions. Simple formulas such as person, place and time work just fine. Also, don’t fear taking videos or pictures. This is ideal for your records and to ensure that you are given accurate information. Also, you are joining your treatment team when you participate actively.
5. Do not be afraid to obtain second opinions---more times than not—this is a life saver. If your gut is in a rut---ask for more support—it’s your right.
6. If you find yourself and or your family members admitted into the hospital---You can always ask to speak to the charge nurse (lead nurse of each shift), the DA (the super duper head nurse over the entire floor) and the lead surgeon (the Dr supervising your attending dr and or specialty surgeon) or the chief of staff (The head Dr or Surgeon normally in charge of the hospital). This chain of command will help you rectify any concern, you may have with your care while hospitalized.

 
We are in this journey together, rather we are “healthy” or we if have some ways to go. Together, we can change these facts if we arm ourselves with “weapons of truth and tools”. 

Kayceè L. Sara, LCSW

Kaycee’ L. Sara LCSW is a heartfelt healer whose primary areas of expertise are women’s holistic wellness, forensic mental health, spirituality coaching and wellness supportive services in practice for over 15 years with Los Angeles county department of mental health. She is the founder of Lotushelps where she shares her passion providing spiritual, mental, and emotional supportive wellness services to underserved communities particularly women of color/LGBTQ+ via individual, family, group and life coaching services. IG: @LotusHelps
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