1ºI was a patient at a UCLA hospital having surgery. I am black. I was offered extra OxyCodone rather than an apology for staff ignoring me at discharge. I never asked for extra medicine. And by ignoring, I mean that I was discharged officially without any pain medication or any assistance to the door, but then offered 6 months of pills two weeks post op after reporting my hellish discharge.

When I gave birth at UCLA, I was in labor 18 hours then discharged within 4 hours of giving birth. I hadn’t had a meal or a shower. I had an episiotomy and wasn’t given any numbing spray or discharge instructions. I had a blood clot and was re hospitalized. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen to other women, but it certainly happens a lot more regularly to black women.

At my last dental procedure, also at UCLA (extraction of tooth number 31-molar), I experienced intense TMJ which recurs and was offered Tylenol. When I asked what white people get, I was told, “we try to limit narcotics”. When I asked why the man in the next chair was offered pain meds to be called in for gum recession, my doctor couldn’t answer. When I asked if race played a part, he was stunned.

The answer is that yes, racism exists in medicine. It’s pervasive and part of what physicians are taught.

---