Discrimination In Health Care

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Introduction Discrimination in health care is not only limited to certain individuals and populations, but it can be something that may happen to anyone on the receiving end of health care. Every individual and population is not free from discrimination; it can happen to any one regardless of their background. That being said, certain populations and individuals are certainly more susceptible to being the victims of discrimination more so than others. Certain examples of these populations may consist of patient who have the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS, obese patients, and patients with different cultural backgrounds.
Population
One example of a population that may be more susceptible to discrimination in health care are individuals who have been …show more content…

There are several ways in which this kind of discrimination occurs: it may occur when health care providers believe that obese patients are lazy or non-adherent to self-care recommendations. Due to this, health care providers have been found to spend less time educating obese patients about their health because they felt it would not make a difference (Burgess et al., 2015). This may lead to detrimental outcomes for these patients. The individual, group, and societal outcomes of discrimination in health care can be detrimental. Individuals may not receive the proper health care that they deserve due to being a victim of discrimination, and this may then lead to poor health outcomes. In addition, this same concept also goes for group and societal outcomes. In general, any sort of discrimination that leads to poor health care can be detrimental for an individual, group, and a society. Perceived discrimination is associated with both negative health outcomes and negative perceptions of quality of care (Andreae et al., 2015).
Minimizing …show more content…

Personally, I felt that I have never been discriminated against in the health care setting. I also feel that I have not discriminated against any of the patients that I have cared for thus far. I did focus on the topic of HIV/AIDS and discrimination because at one point I did care for a patient with this diagnosis. At first, I felt nervous because I did not really know what to expect, and felt that was my main fear. I treated my patient with the upmost respect and kindness even though I felt fear, but I realized my fear was only due to fear of the unknown. I put myself in my patient’s shoes and thought about what it would be like to live with that diagnosis, and how saddening it must be. If I was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, I would not wanted to be treated any differently, and would like to be treated the same as everyone else. I feel that a diagnosis or someone’s background should never define whom that person is, and what kind of care they should

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