Before I (finally) moved to obodo-oyibo, I had often heard/read stories of people of colour, complaining about wrong or inadequate treatment at the hands of medical professionals.
From misdiagnosis, to lack of any diagnosis. Often stemming
from inadequate medical exposure on things related to persons of colour (and
some would even argue, systemic racism)
I often treated them as just that; mere stories. After all,
were the gods of medicine in the West not what we used to taunt our tropical doctors on their inefficiencies??
Grey's Anatomy did an excellent job in schooling me that
doctors in North America were little higher than mere gods. Close to infallible
even.
Right?
In the time since I moved however, I have had my own
personal experiences, which have made me begin to personally understand these
complaints of people of colour, and be actively involved in whatever round of
treatment I am given.
From flat out arguing with a doctor that the Zika virus was more of a South American
phenomenon in recent times, so that there was no need to quarantine me for it, due to a return
trip from Nigeria. (Good ole Lady Google settled that argument).
To repeatedly explaining to another good natured doctor,
that at 200 pounds and size 10, I was in the best form ever that my 6-foot self
had been or could ever be.
I worked out 5-6 times a week, swam, walked, danced. Ate
clean. Watched my cholesterol intake. Drank my lemon water. Minded my business.
It was not my fault that the 'world' BMI standards surely failed to
take into cognisance the density of African bones, in prescribing my BMI as
"overweight".
Sigh.
My most recent run-in with the medical profession however
left me the most gobsmacked.
It brought me to the initial "aha!" it is either we are in dire need of more persons of colour in the
medical profession, or more medical professionals who are more widely
travelled, have dealt with a wider demographic of humans and thus, possess a
better balanced understanding of the applicability of their craft to people of
demographics other than of Caucasian heritage.
(Phew! That was a mouthful)
...
I had gone in to see the doctor for chronic knee pain,
resulting from University-basketball injuries that were ignored, and had
years later, began to taunt me.
I explained this history to the doctor, told him of my prior
scans even, and the recommended courses of treatment I had received over time, which my then budding career
at never afforded me the opportunity to explore. Age now demanded I considered them.
After routine questions, this kind gentleman asked me to
stand up, looked at my legs, then looked at me.
"Ma'm, the thing is
you feel the pain more because you're knock-kneed, so..."
Whaaaaaat! Everything else flew out of the window.
"I am what??"
"Oh, knock-kneed.
This means..." he proceeded to define it.
"I know what
knock-kneed means".
Heck, I knew knock-knees since reading Elechi Amadi's the
Concubine in primary five, and perpetually smiling at the knock-kneed Wodu
Wakiri's comedic story-arch, in the otherwise tragic classic.
At that early age, I'd checked the meaning of
"knock-knees", and understood it was what some derogatorily (and wrongly) referred
to as 'K-Leg'.
Not that being knock-kneed is a negative label, worthy of
rending one's clothes in dire mourning. But I had had enough tort legal
exposure in medical negligence cases, to understand that just one 'erroneous' misdiagnosis in your medical treatment could send you on
a medical lifetime journey of tears.
"Doctor, I am many, many things. But I am NOT
knock-kneed".
He stood up, and showed me how his thighs/legs did not join
together at the knees, unlike mine, which lacked the European "see through" all
Victoria's Secret models easily boast of.
Sigh.
This fine, lanky gentleman, who could be no more than a size
1.5 (UK), both his legs together not as large as my one leg.
He was comparing his physical Anatomy to mine, in order to
convince me that my mother had birthed me with a condition which stayed
undiscovered for a huge part of a half century. Just as Christopher Columbus
"discovered" America, surely, he had discovered I was knock-kneed.
El Oh El.
I knew it would sound childish to tell him of all the
secondary school accolades I won for "Miss straight legs". So I tried
to explained to him in the calmest detail the phenomenon known as Anambra
Thighs.
The Anambra women of South East Nigeria, in Africa, are not
only known for their tall height and big build. They are renowned for their
thick thighs, which is where all the fat in their body play monopoly. So that
your typical Anambra woman may boast of a six-pac size 8 upper body, yet, be
stuck with size 12 pants and skirts.
Because: Thighs.
While we could not boast of the hips of our Imo
counterparts, we remained unbeaten in the South-East (and I daresay, the whole
Nigeria) for 'ukwu-turkey'.
Come rain, come shine. Even if I became a size 0 tomorrow,
those thighs had sworn no retreat, no surrender.
And I love every inch of them. I love the banging body God
blessed me with. The identity with which I had been gifted, not just as an African woman, but a constant
reminder of my proud Anambra heritage.
I'd be darned if I'd let uncle doctor condemn me to a
condition I did not have, because I was the first Anambra woman he had met. And
I told him this, in the clearest of terms.
Suffice to note that the pitch he had prepared for a pair of $450 per-foot
compression shoes to 'assist' with the 'knock-knees' was an epic fail, as I
insisted on seeing his superior, who simply provided the necessary referral that I
come in for in the first place.
*Rolls-eyes*
*Rolls-eyes*
Now, this post is not to ridicule or reduce the good work my
sisters and brothers in the medical profession do. However, just like in my
profession - the legal profession - there is always need for a professional to
apply restraint in 'blanket' approaches to every matter, and deal with each on
the merits of their own. That knock-kneed persons have their legs joined at the
knees, does not equal that everyone whose legs come together close to the knees is
knock-kneed.
The demographic heritage of a person is rather vital in the
provision of professional services to any person.
That you have limited exposure to predominantly a particular
demographic is not a negative reflection on your professional capabilities. It
just requires more open-mindedness and perhaps a little more of conscious
exposure (research even) in dealing with members of a different demographic.
It also requires actually listening to and understanding
your clients' history, rather than mansplaining & Caucasiansplaining their
issues away.
My lunch-time discourse the next day about this with other
colleagues of colour reaffirmed that it was not "all in my head", as
they recounted their own experiences, and how now they held fast to their
doctors of Pakistan, South African and Caribbean heritage, due to poor
treatment with prior 'traditional' doctors they had visited.
But this does little for the diversity we all are trying so
hard to promote, does it??
My take away from all this is that it is not just enough for more people of colour to be in the medical profession. If persons of colour
stick to persons of colour, we perpetuate systemic polarisation in the society.
Rather, there is the need for our medical (and other) professionals to be
more in tune with the fast changing demographic of our society, and align their
services to be better suited for case by case application, rather than holding
every demographic ransom to European standards.
Maybe this may require changing some textbook theories.
Maybe it may require conferences at national and international levels, and a much wider discourse. Or maybe even it may require moving us all to Mars, and
blowing the trumpet on Earth.
I don't have all the answers.
All I know is that next time, please pause and conduct
proper research, before you wrongly declare a well-rounded, full-figured, body-bangin' woman of African heritage as
'knock-kneed'.
Paz,
Meg.
GIF-credit: www.giphy.com (Original photo from the Real Housewives of Atlanta)
GIF-credit: www.giphy.com (Original photo from the Real Housewives of Atlanta)
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