Reflections from the Field Seeking Wholeness: The Black Women Patient Experience.

Abstract

At the intersection of gender and race are Black women, who experience higher levels of racism, sexism, and discrimination than Black men and White women, with greater impact on their health. Theirs is a legacy of trauma as enslaved bodies whose procreative function served as instruments of economic profit, vehicles of sexual pleasure, and matter for medical experimentation. Their mothers were Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells were preserved and propagated without her knowledge and Anarcha, on whom J Marion Sims, the “father of modern gynecology” performed 30 fistula surgeries without anesthesia. I understood this as the history Ms. C carried with her to her hospital bed as she recovered from surgery for her colorectal cancer and relayed a series of experiences where her Black body was fodder for careless disregard and easy slights.