Author: kilbane.57

Text Review: Emily in Paris

by

Samantha Kilbane

December 1, 2020

COMPSTD 1100

A television show that I recently watched that had very similar aspects to the themes of this course is the new Netflix show “Emily in Paris”. The show depicts a twenty-something year old female who moves to Paris for a year to work with a marketing company based in the city. Emily explains many times throughout the show that her role in the company is to provide an “American perspective” to how the firm is advertising and selling the various products for the companies that they represent. This single season show consists of 10 episodes that are full of clashing cultures. Emily’s co-workers often do not agree with her opinions, lack of ability to speak French, and overall American lifestyle. Emily is consistently placed into the role of “other” as it takes her time and experience to adjust to the French way of life. This is simply evident when Emily is constantly having to ask what is being said in a conversation when everyone around her is speaking French and she only knows English. Emily’s boss at her new company in Paris very much reminds me of Kincaid and her opinion’s on the negativity surrounding tourism. For example, while working in Paris, Emily creates an Instagram account specifically to document the things she sees and does in Paris; the boss finds this account to be extremely distasteful and disrespectful to the people of Paris, as the photos she posts is putting Paris on display for the rest of the world. Although Emily is not technically a tourist as she is in Paris for work, her boss constantly reminds her that she is the “other” while she is in Paris. “Emily in Paris” brings up some very stereotypical aspects of both American and European lifestyles, however I feel the point of this was to highlight the power of identity based on location. Emily is steadfast to her American identity while in Paris; this clashing of identity based on culture is what makes Emily appear to be the “other” in the show. 

Racism and Bias in Health Care – Samantha Kilbane

by

 

Samantha Kilbane

Script:

 

Hello, my name is Samantha, and I would first like to thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. For today’s conversation, I want to expand upon an experience that I had while working in one of Ohio State’s hospitals. To give some background about myself, which will help to give some context about my experience that I will soon talk about, I am currently a senior at Ohio State, and upon graduation in May, I will work in the medical field, to be completely vague. I currently work at one of the Ohio State hospitals to help aide my education, experience, and knowledge base for my future career. 

One night at work, I was working in the ICU, which has had a decent number of patients with COVID-19. The unit had just gotten word that a new admission was coming to the ICU from the emergency department, and had just tested positive for COVID-19. I’m sure most of you have heard about the symptom set of this viral infection, if not or to serve as a refresher, the most common symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, a dry cough, and difficulty breathing. It was passed along in report that this new patient that was coming to the unit was having extreme difficulty breathing. As a medical professional, hearing this in any patient is of the utmost concern. If a patient is having trouble breathing, or cannot breathe properly, this can quickly turn into a medical emergency and may escalate to a life-or-death situation. 

A few minutes passed and the new patient quickly arrived to the unit. Once they were in the bed of their new room, the patient was quickly flocked by nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists to assess the patient, administer medication, insert IVs, analyze their vital signs, and overall determine if the patient is in a stable condition, or if advanced medical care is necessary. The patient arrived slightly drowsy, but as soon as the health care providers started assessing the patient, he took one look around the room, threw he arms out to the side of him in a sweeping motion and shouted, “where are all of the people who look like me?! I need a doctor who looks like me!!”. This happened about a few months ago, and I can still vividly remember the frightened look in the patient’s eyes. 

In the moment, I did not give much thought to the patients remark, as the main focus of the moment was ensuring his medical stability. However, after the hours, days, and weeks passed after this encounter, I kept thinking about this situation and the depth of what truly happened. What I realized occurred in this moment, was an African American patient was scared and intimidated to receive care from only Caucasian doctors and nurses. To relate this moment to the theme of this podcast segment, and answer the question, Is This Racist? I would answer no. However, I would adamantly argue that in this moment, the patient was scared of experiencing racism – so scared in fact, that he was afraid that racism was going to cost him his life in the sense that he was afraid he wasn’t going to receive the medical care that he needed. 

Upon further thought of this situation, I was prompted to think about why the patient felt this way. To help me better assess this situation, I feel lucky that I am currently studying in a program that educates us future health care providers about the pandemic in health care that is racism, and the impact that it has on the health of minority groups based on ethnicity. This week in class actually, we learned and discussed about the recent announcement and initiatives that are taking place within the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center regarding racism in healthcare. This summer, executive vice president at OSUWMC and chancellor of health affairs Dr. Harold Paz announced OSU’s consideration of racism a social determinant of health. Also in this article by Health Leaders, the author explains Dr. Paz’s initiatives to create groups to “promote racial equity in Ohio”. To give you a better understanding of this declaration of considering racism a social determinant of health, let me provide you with the explanation of what a social determinant of health is according to healthypeople.gov, these are factors and conditions in the environment that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes and risks. Other examples of social determinants of health include access to food and safe housing, access to education and job opportunities, and socioeconomic conditions. 

So how does racism fit into this category of determining an individuals health outcome? In a TedMed talk titled “how racism makes us sick”, sociologist David Williams talks about the racism’s effect on health and health care. He states, “every 7 minutes, a black person dies prematurely in the US” – this staggering statistic shows that the health of blacks and whites is not equal. According to Williams, the biggest impact of lack of equality of care in the health care field comes from implicit bias; he describes it in this clip : (6:30-7:41) play clip. Aside from being on the receiving end of bias from a health care provider, Williams notes that African Americans often have poorer health overall due to the racism, bias, and prejudice they receive in everyday life. Health conditions such as increased blood pressure, increased cortisol levels (stress hormone), diabetes, and heart disease are at staggering levels within the African American community. Pairing any of these diseases with a COVID 19 infection, greatly increases the symptoms, morbidity, and mortality of the illness. This might be one of the factors that leads to the statistic that African Americans are 2x more likely to die from COVID 19, according to a PBS News hour video titled, “how covid 19 is highlighting racial disparities”. This same PBS video ends with the presentation of a statistic: “around 5% of physicians in the US are black, per data from 2018”. 

This fact brings me in to the next point that I would like to talk a bit about – how does this situation I experienced at work, and the points that I have made thus far, relate to the themes of the course? In health care, and health overall, African Americans and other minority groups are forced into the category of other. Yourself, in comparison to other, has been a major theme in this course – and we have learned to therefore be cognizant of our thoughts and actions based on these ideas. This idea proves true in the health care field, as well as any other line of work. The majority of healthcare providers are caucasion, so when a patient is African America, the health care provider subconsciously sees the patient as different from themselves. Statistics show that Caucasians have lower rates of chronic disease and a higher life expectancy compared to African Americans – this evidence is proof of implicit bias in healthcare. 

So, to wrap this whole discussion together, what does this mean for the listener? I asked myself this question when I decided to speak about this topic. I understand that not everyone listening to this will be going in to healthcare, so what do I want the listener to gain from this discussion? I quickly answered this posed question to myself with: this is a call to check your bias, and speak up when you witness someone expressing racism, prejudice, or bias. Although you may not be providing medical care to an individual, it has been shown that every interaction that is had, effects someone’s health – whether that be physically or mentally. And although one interaction might seem slight, negative interactions build overtime. Checking your bias and acknowledging a racist moment to make a change for future interactions in this world can have a positive impact on the health of African Americans and other minority groups. Racism is a pandemic in the United States that needs a cure. 

References
Blackman, Melanie. “OSU Wexner Medical Center’s Anti-Racism Action Plan Aims to Address ‘Direct Line Between Racial Discrimination and Health Outcomes’.” HealthLeaders Media, 16 July 2020, www.healthleadersmedia.com/strategy/osu-wexner-medical-centers-anti-racism-action-plan-aims-address-direct-line-between-racial.

PBSNewsHour. YouTube, 16 July 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIIEx_SvTj0.

Williams, David R. YouTube, TedMed, 2 May 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzyjDR_AWzE&t=472s. 

“Social Determinants of Health.” Healthy People.gov, Healthy People 2020, www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-of-health.

Diary of Systemic Injustice – Bias in Health Care

by

Samantha Kilbane

COMPSTD 1100

October 24, 2020

Diary of Systemic Injustices Showcase

One evening at work, I was preparing the hospital room for a new admission that was coming into the ICU with difficulty breathing as he had just received a positive COVID test. The patient quickly arrived on the unit and nurses and doctors swarmed around him to get him settled into his bed, attach him to the monitors, and give him medications. The patient took one look around the room, swung his arms around out to the sides and proclaimed, “where are all of the people who look like me?! I need a doctor who looks like me”. 

This moment happened weeks ago, yet still invades my thoughts almost everyday. This African American patient was scared to receive care from providers who were all white. This patient was extremely sick, and in this moment of being in the hospital surrounded by white people, felt he needed someone of the same skin color in order to provide him the care that he needed. 

This experience reminds me everyday that racism is a public health crisis. This patient was afraid of experiencing racism, and afraid that the racism was going to cost him his life. This systemic injustice is so prevalent in the United States and is supported by numerous statistics. According to the Center for American Progress, African Americans have higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease than any other group of people. This startling statistic is evidence behind the ever prevalent systemic injustice in health care. People of color, including African Americans and Latinos, often have increased rates of morbidity and mortality due to the racial bias that exists among various health care workers. Although this may not be intentional, bias still exists and it is impacting the health of Americans. 

In order for this injustice to be eradicated at the systemic level, a change in the medical system as a whole is necessary. As a health care worker myself, I recognize the importance of truly recognizing your own biases, and correcting these false and inappropriate thoughts. All medical decisions should be made based on science and evidence that leads to best practice. 

If an American cannot receive the necessary medical care they need, they are forced into the role of the subaltern. The everyday, lay person cannot be expected to diagnose and treat themselves, this is why the medical system exists. But if the medical system cannot be trusted to accurately and properly treat every person of every descent that is seeking medical care, then every American is not equal. These individuals are forced into the role of the subaltern because they have no voice above the medical professionals, who are supposed to be the experts in the situation. The patient in the scenario above was trying to eliminate himself being defined as the subaltern, by raising his voice and verifying he was receiving the care he needed. 

Carrata, Sofia, and Connor Maxwell. “Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity.” Center for American Progress, 7 May 2020, www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2020/05/07/484742/health-disparities-race-ethnicity/

Source: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race 

Article highlighting the idea that elderly African Americans are the most vulnerable to COVID 19

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/agm2.12131

Week 2 Context Research Presentation – Samantha Kilbane

by

Samantha Kilbane

COMPSTD 1100

August 29, 2020

Frederick Jameson’s Words Spark Critique 

This week’s reading is a critique by Aijaz Ahmad in response to an essay written by Frederick Jameson. In order to understand what Ahmad is claiming about Jameson, it is important to know a little about Jameson, and his piece Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism. Jameson published his journal entry to the Social Text in 1986, and just one year later, Ahmad came out with his response to Jameson’s words. 

To begin, Frederick Jameson is a current professor at Duke University in Comparative Literature and Romance Studies. Duke’s faculty directory describes Jameson as an American literary critic, theorist, and author with a “… need to analyze literature as an encoding of political and social imperatives, and the interpretation of modernist and postmodernism assumptions through a rethinking of Marxist methodology” (Duke University). Recognizing Jameson’s Marisxt thought process, gives a better understanding behind his works. Marxism is greatly centered around theories and principles of socialism, with a focus on class struggle and dialectical materialism (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). 

Professor of english at Texas State University, Robert T. Tally Jr., theorizes that Jameson wrote his “Third-World” essay in response to his previously published book Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism in 1991. Tally supports this claim as he mentions the works state very similar ideas, yet the “Third-World” essay was omitted due to the criticism it was expected to receive, hence Ahmad’s essay. Jameson receives much of his criticism toward his claim that all third world country literature creates a ‘national allegory’. To quote Jameson from his essay, “[third-world literature] project[s] a political dimension in the form of national allegory: the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society” (Jameson, 69). Controversy becomes thick with this singular labeling of countries with such diverse cultures. 

So how does this connect to Aijaz Ahmad’s essay? Well, as Ahmad quickly mentions, they are a writer from India and commonly write in the Urdu language. In Jameson’s piece, he writes that countries such as Africa, South America, and Southern Asia all fall under the same title of “third-world” based on the literature that is produced from these countries (Tally). Ahmad is one of many authors to criticize this essay by Jameson. Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism continues to spark controversy among readers almost 25 years later. 

 

Works Cited

Jameson, Frederic. “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.” Duke 

University Press, Social Text, 1986.

 

“Marxism.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster,  

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Marxism.

 

“Program in Literature.” Fredric Jameson | Program in Literature, 

literature.duke.edu/people/fredric-jameson.

 

Tally, Robert T. “Fredric Jameson and the Controversy over ‘Third-World Literature in the Era of 

Multinational Capitalism.’” Global South Studies, U.Va., Nov. 2017, globalsouthstudies.as.virginia.edu/key-thinkers/fredric-jameson-and-controversy-over-“third-world-literature-era-multinational.