Fear is something that lurks deep in the mind
of living things everywhere. Each individual, which is not limited to humanity,
has a fear of something. That thing may be spiders, the dark, clowns, etc.
Something that I fear is death. There is a saying that there are only two
things guaranteed in life. Those are death, and taxes. That is an irrefutable fact.
Death comes for everyone it does not discriminate, and you never know when it
will strike.
This is something that many people today
fear. Dying is even becoming common in the inner-city area where minorities are
mainly located. There are diseases and illnesses that affect millions every
year such as HIV and AIDS, and the failure of organs within the bod. A large percentage
of people within the united states die from not being able to afford healthcare
and the underrepresentation within the healthcare system. Many people besides
myself fear dying, and in my own opinion, it is not the fact that it is
unavoidable, but the fact that you never know when it will come for you. The
unpredictability of being able to be doing your normal everyday routine, and your
life ends in a snap.
The Health
Care industry is worth billions of dollars and affects citizens. In American
history, there have been several instances where minorities have died from
simple disadvantages within health care. The several disadvantages such as they
are uninsured, unrepresented, and discriminated against within healthcare
system. The discrimination against minorities started all the way from slavery
days in the republic and still affect minorities today. Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia,
wrote about lung differences between slaves and white colonists.
Jefferson described many physical distinctions to justify the condition of
slaves in the republic, and one was “a difference of structure in the pulmonary
apparatus”. The interest in modern spirometers did not start until the 1840 in
Europe after John Hutchinson, a London-based physician, published several
studies. The physician Hutchinson,
described the technical features of the spirometer and its potential
applications. Spirometry are
commonly used to test how good your lungs work. The spirometry measures how
much air you inhale. The devices used to help you keep your lungs healthy after
medical procedures such as a patient receiving a surgery or when you have a
lung illness (Orenstein) . The Doctors use the spirometer to measure
lung capacity automatically make “corrections” for the patient’s race (Orenstein) . Research was done in the late 1990’s where African-
American children were taller and heavier but had lower lung function (Braun) . African Americans
were poorer and had lower levels of the antioxidant vitamins A and C and
α-carotene. Poverty, nutrition, and exposure to tobacco smoke may affect lung
development (Braun) . Users of the
spirometer indicate that many operators are unaware that they are automatically
activating race correction when they select a patient’s race (Braun) . The correction for blacks is reduced by about
13 percent of the normal settings for whites. It is crazy to go back and see
that black and white lungs differ has a long history dating to the early years
of the US slavery-based republic.
Minorities
have been targeted in research and largely affected. Moreover, minority
populations are not represented equally within the Health care industry. If,
the United states doesn’t come up with a plan, to make better health insurance
and policies the same problems will remain. physicians will keep having the
ability to discriminate against unserved patients within healthcare
system. The percentage of people who die
from health circumstance will always be high for minorities, and the rate
people die from thing such as heart failure will stay high for the urban communities.
The reason African Americas, and Latinos have more health problems are not from
a genetic difference, it is because the discrimination they receive and underrepresentation within the healthcare system
Fearing death is one thing, but along with
that comes the strength to overcome that fear as well. Life waits for no man,
and will continue to flow down its long stream, and does not stop for those who
inhabit it. That is no way to live. Being able to live with your fears
are something that humans must be able to do.
Death is a very scary thing. It is not a slasher movie murderer, or a
scary monster that lives under your bed. It is much more real than those, and
it is absolute.
Orenstein, David. Brown University . 3 6 2013. 1
3 2017. <https://news.brown.edu/articles/2013/06/spirometers>.
Braun, Lundy. Race, ethnicity and lung function: A
brief history. Ed. RCTR 51.4. Canadian Journal of Respiratory Therapy:
CJRT, 2015.
Cartwright, Dr. Samuel A. Diseases and Peculiarities
of the Negro Race. Volume XI. Debow's Review . New York: AMS Press, Inc. ,
1851.
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