Can you blame them, unless you like feeling rushed, unheard, not taken seriously? 

According to the Pew Research Center, more than half of Black patients say they've experienced at least one of these:

• You had to speak up to get the proper care
• The pain you were experiencing was not taken seriously
• You were rushed by your health care provider
• Felt you were treated with less respect than other patients
• Felt you received lower quality care than other patients
• You were looked down on because of your weight

Damon Tweedy, MD is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. In Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine, he shares his first-hand account of life in the US healthcare system as a Black physician.

Over the years he’s personally witnessed these poor healthcare experiences, and formed the opinion that they happen because:

1. Black people are disproportionately uninsured, have less access to primary care physicians, and can’t easily keep long-term relationships with the same doctors.
2. Some doctors (of all races) push different and possibly substandard treatments because they don’t trust their Black patients to manage their health responsibly. Some Black patients ignore well-meaning and sound treatment plans because they distrust the medical profession. These attitudes started in the early years of American history and unfortunately still exist today.
3. The unhealthy lifestyle behaviors of too many Black patients remains a reality. 

Read this book if you wonder how in the world this is still happening. Tweedy takes you through real life cases of real people that the healthcare system has left behind.

Seeing how this too easily happens to people will help you and I better understand and support the healthcare reforms needed to fix the system. 

In the meantime, we can support small businesses that have chosen to do something for healthcare, such as:

• Comfort Cafe in San Antonio that uses its profits to support addiction recovery, 
• Fidelity Security Life Insurance Company in Kansas City that provides free eye exams and glasses for underprivileged K-12 kids,
• Kindred Space in Los Angeles that provides free and low cost education, training and certification pertaining to pregnancy, birth and postpartum, especially for Black maternal health, and
• Coffee, Hip-Hop & Mental Health in Chicago that funds mental health services.

“Have you heard?” is our way of sharing another point of view on commonly held beliefs. Through this we hope to encourage curiosity, dialogue, and tolerance of diverse ideas.