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Without knowing it, Jatu Boikai has become a medical Pied Pipper of sorts.
She’s the nurse manager who has hired 25 Black nurses in an effort to help diversify a profession in which an overwhelming number of nurses in Ohio (88%) are white.
Boikai’s also the state’s only Black nurse manager of maternity services.
The only one.
Boikai’s work goes beyond helping people obtain well-respected and good-paying jobs. It also helps Black women who often feel disrespected and discounted by medical professionals who can prejudices govern treatment.
For example, one study showed that 40% of Black people were less likely to receive medication for their pain. Another study found that first- and second-year medical students believed that Black people have thicker skin and experience less pain.
These studies aren’t from 1919 and 1916.
Jatu Boikai has a solution.Black women’s maternal mortality 3 times higher than white women.
They’re from 2019 and 2016.
Boikai and others strike against the discrimination that still permeates a medical profession that vows to treat people to the best if its ability but still lets its biases seep into care decisions. The American Medical Association, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Journal of Public Health are among the many respected publications who have focused on the need to solve the issue of racial and ethnic biases in medicine.
We live in a time in which conservative groups sue over efforts to help level the economic playing field. Boikai’s endeavors show those lawsuits are about keeping power and not about preventing the alleged reverse discrimination from people who seek to help disenfranchised groups.
When white people dominate a profession with nearly nine out of 10 employees; when national medical groups call for diversification of the medical profession; when patients of color decry unequal treatment that research supports; there’s no excuse for lawsuits like the one that seeks to stop the medical group Vituity from using a grant program to diversify medicine.
The medical profession should applaud Boikai. Polls show that Black people trust doctors less because they don’t feel they get the same care as white patients, and they have a hard time finding a doctor that looks like them.
More:The Other Side podcast: Ohio State doctor says we’re all biased, whether you know it or not
In a perfect scenario, more Black people go to the doctor, have medical issues diagnosed sooner, save lives, and save medical costs since catching illnesses sooner can lead to less expensive treatments.
So, for those that don’t like the idea of Black people advocating for diversifying medicine, look at it this way — it can save you money by decreasing health care costs.
Nothing says equality like putting cash back in your pocket.
Congratulations Jatu Boikai. You’ve shown us the way. Here’s hoping that others will follow your example.
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