Medicine Does Not Heal Social Maladies

By Hannah Jung / Winter 2021

Dear Past Me,

You have always thought illness and sickness comes from something. There had to be a reasonable source. An individual addicted to smoking would have a higher chance of being diagnosed with lung cancer, and if one’s mother or grandmother had breast cancer, those cancer genes would also be in their system. To you, this seemed fair and this seemed right. Choosing to live an unhealthy lifestyle would bring consequences.

Things look a bit different and you will soon realize there’s so much more to everything. What we see on the surface level doesn’t get any closer to the truth. One day, I read an article about how socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic disparities have a correlation to cancer mortality. What I’m about to say to you next may sound strange and unpleasant, but this the truth even when it comes to heartbreaking topics like health and cancer. To start out, here are just some facts. In the article, it talked about how cancer patient survival was significantly lower in more deprived neighborhoods and among most ethnic-minority groups. Furthermore, cancer mortality was higher among Blacks.

In the past, a social hierarchy pyramid existed with the whites on top and the colored people on the bottom. One thing I don’t understand is this. How come the social hierarchy pyramid correlates to a social problem that exists today? Why is it that the colored people and those with low socioeconomic status are the ones constantly being targeted? A lot have changed from the past and we take one step closer to equality each day, but it seems like one thing remains unchanged. The fact that once you’re placed on the bottom of the pyramid, it’s almost impossible to break out from it.

You see this pattern constantly being played throughout history. For example, from slavery to freedom, the blacks fight through a long battle for equality. But remember, even when slavery was abolished in 1865, lynchings continue and brutalities against the blacks don’t stop. The law doesn’t have much power because the result happened before the process. There has to be a slow process that leads to the end result in order for the result to be successful. But oftentimes, the result comes first and people gradually learn to adjust to it. The result comes too fast and that’s where the problem arises.

Once the Civil Rights Act ended segregation of facilities, public spaces, education, and transportation for the blacks, freedom came at last. However, the meaning of freedom soon turns into poverty. The blacks and the minorities have a difficult time finding a job due to prejudice and also due to lack of education. They end up living in poor neighborhoods and working long hours which leads to a natural separation between the rich and the poor. This becomes the new hierarchical pyramid where the top dominates the society and the rest follow.

As you can see, minorities are always discriminated against and unrecognized because it’s hard for them to have a voice in society. They would be born into low socioeconomic status households, they wouldn't be given the best public education, they would have to focus on work instead of school in order to support their family, and their neighborhoods would be surrounded by fast food restaurants and healthy grocery stores would be too far from where they live because people from those neighborhoods won’t have the money to buy those groceries. I realized it’s not by coincidence how cancer disparities exist in today’s society because the same pattern has been repeating itself from history.

So, it’s not about how they choose to live an unhealthy lifestyle. Society has placed them there and they’re stuck there. A few outliers may potentially break away from those barriers and rise to the top of the social pyramid, but the environment that they are born into makes it hard for them to escape away from their current lifestyle. It’s the lifestyle that leads to higher rates of being diagnosed with cancer, and higher rates of cancer mortality. There has to be a way to change the system, but a change isn’t something that happens overnight. You’ve always thought studying medicine would be the way to heal the sick, but as long as the system of majority and minority exists, medicine won’t be the key to healing. You will soon realize medicine is only for those who can afford it and for those who have the money and status in society. When it comes to health and the sick, I wish society could view and treat everyone equally. Maybe one day, my wish can come true.

Love,

Your Future Self