Vesicovaginal fistula is a tear from the bladder or anus to the vagina that causes urine or feces to leak and can arise from physical complications from the birth of a child. In 1849, the American surgeon James Marion Sims was credited with being the first doctor to successfully repair this condition surgically (Ojanuga 1993). His methods included operations on 14 African American female slaves without the benefit of anesthesia. Many women underwent multiple operations, as many as 30 separate times (Macleod 1999). However, Sims is hailed as a heroic and noble contributor to the medical world and women’s health, yet his work only recently been questioned regarding his controversial operations on slaves. The issues surrounding Sims’ works concern the morality and ethics of Sims’ operations and whether the “ends justified the means” when looking at the findings vs. the methods. Undoubtedly, Sims contributed volumes of knowledge and expertise to gynecology by pioneering new technologies and techniques that were surgically successful (Zacharin 2008). After observing postcolonial society through Sims’ lasting discoveries, his critics and supporters, and his own autobiography, I believe that the production of Sims’ surgical contributions came at far too high of a cost. His barbarous actions helped to perpetuate the degradation of women, and African American female slaves in particular, and also promote slavery. This topic is important because the medical world has a responsibility to acknowledge the roots and founders of its discipline and cannot turn a blind eye to these appalling acts, as so many textbooks and medical journals have. Since its birth, the politics of medicine has perpetuated a racial hegemony and the combination of Sims ...
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6) Sims, J. M., (1855). Story of my Life. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
7) Spettel, Sara, and Mark Donald White. "The portrayal of J. Marion Sims' controversial surgical legacy." The Journal of urology 185.6 (2011): 2424-2427.
8) Sterling, Dorothy. (1984). We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Norton.
9) Wall, L.L. (2006). The medical ethics of Dr J Marion Sims: a fresh look at the historical record. Journal of Medical Ethics, 32(6), 346-350. doi: 10.1136/jme.2005.012559
10) Zacharin, R. B., (2000). A History of Obstetric Vesicovaginal Fistula. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery, 70(12), 851-854. DOI: 10.1046/j.1440-1622.2000.01990.x
11) Washington, Harriet A. Medical apartheid: The dark history of medica experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present. Random House LLC, 2006.
Clinton, Catherine. The Other Civil War, American Women in the Nineteenth Century: Hill and Wang, New York 1986
In September 2012, the New York Times published an article about a woman who started experiencing severe abdominal pain 4 years status post Hysterectomy. Upon further inspection using a computed Topography (CT) scan, a surgical sponge was found inside the patient. In addition to the sponge left in the patient, the surgical exploration to retrieve it had caused a severe infection that resulted
But there was one group that was majorly impacted to their core: African-Americans. “Like me, several other black men that I interviewed… either inculcated from birth or from experience… the idea that the American health-care system is not for them” (Newkirk II). African-Americans in the South were particularly affected because that is where the study occurred. “The study ended decades ago, but (Lillie Tyson) Head said, ‘it still has an impact on how your feelings are and how your trust is toward (health) professionals,’ adding she sometimes feels apprehension about whether she is being told the truth” (Toy). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study caused a change in the thought processes and comfort of African Americans around their doctors. It caused them to become wary about everything they say; some African Americans were so stubborn and distrustful of medical professionals that they have yet to receive medical attention or advice since the news of the study was released in
For many African-Americans, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study has affected their daily life when it comes to health care. With the amount of sadness that surrounds the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, it is hard to believe that so many are unaware it existed. Problems such as broken medical ethics, severely affected health of African Americans, and a change in the way African Americans view medicine arose because of this
Smith, J, & Phelps, S (1992). Notable Black American Women, (1st Ed). Detroit, MI: Gale
The colon was reflected medially exposing the retroperitoneum. The renal pelvis and proximal ureter were identified helped by the presence of the jj catheter. The ureter was dissected and followed until the right side of the vena cava. In the interaortocaval area the ureter was identified and dissected caudally (Figure 2, 3). Using sharp and blunt dissection the retrocaval segment was then entirely mobilized and separated from the inferior vena cava (IVC). The renal pelvis was sectioned. The stent was partially withdrawn and the ureter was drawn medially from behind the vena cava. After checking the retrocaval portion was not atretic, the renal pelvis and the ureter were reanastomosed with running 4-0 polyglactin sutures in a normal anatomic
Chisholm, Shirley. "Race, Revolution and Women." The Black Scholar 42.2 (2012): 31-35. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 May 2016.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Penguin Group, 2000. Print.
3) Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story (New York, 1992), 5. Web. 07. May 2014.
Rebecca Skloot’s novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, depicts the violation of medical ethics from the patient and researcher perspectives specifically when race, poverty, and lack of medical education are factors. The novel takes place in the southern United States in 1951. Henrietta Lacks is born in a poor rural town, Clover, but eventually moves to urban Turner Station. She was diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins hospital where cells was unknowingly taken from her and used for scientific research. Rebecca Skloot describes this when she writes, “But first—though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting sample or asked she wanted to be a donor—Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta's cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby. Then he placed the samples in a glass dish” (33). The simple act of taking cells, which the physicians did not even think twice about, caused decades
This week we explored the health care through a feminist lens, which analyses race, gender, and power. The first piece by Murphy gave a background on protocol feminism and the history of "feminist self-help clinics" (Murphy). Such clinics were understood as a "mobile set of practices" (Murphy 25) that challenged the politicization of medical practice, their power dynamics, and worked to help women reclaim bodily autonomy. If my reading is correct protocol feminism and feminist protocols were the lessons and guidelines created and dispersed across the country to aid women, of all races, on how to take control of their own health care. Moreover, Murphy emphasizes the connection between feminism and technoscience, but I did not understand what technoscience was in the terms of her article. Finally, due to the way that many of these clinics appeared to be "unraced" because they were White run, racial issues that plague health care were not adequately addressed and once again the white people became the foundation for the understanding of human health. The second piece by Roberts discussed the racial implications of the neoliberal influences on
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York, NY: W. W. Norton &
Freedman B. Equipoise and the ethics of clinical research. N Engl J Med. 1987; 317(3): 141-145
McGee, Glenn and Arthur L. Caplan. "Medical Ethics." Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1997: Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM.
Garrett, T. M., Baillie, H. W., & Garrett, R. M. (2010). Health care ethics: Principles and problems (5thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.