Chapter 19: Medical Racism Is Real.

How The Color Of Your Skin Affects The Quality Of Your Diagnosis. And What You Can Do About It.

Kevin Wake called 911 from home as he realized that he was beginning to have a stroke. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was unable to speak or use his right side. He was conscious and could hear and see everything but couldn’t respond. The EMTs presented Wake to the emergency room as a suspected drug abuser overdosing based on just one observed fact: he was a Black man in Chicago. They didn’t know he had called it in or that he had said stroke to the operator. They didn’t know he was a successful pharmaceutical sales representative. He says he could hear the emergency room staff discuss his non-existent overdose. He became so angry that in a miraculous burst of strength he finally managed to signal for a pen with his left hand. Wake scratched down three words that saved his life: sickle cell stroke.

When patients need medical attention, we anticipate that we’ll be helped by caring experts regardless of who we are or where we come from. Patients of color in America have learned to …