Women in Health Care

Being relatively unfamiliar with health care policy, this week’s reading provided me with a rich and insightful perspective on women’s role and experience in the realm of public health and activism. Carol Mendez’ piece offered profound insights on her journey arriving to the United States as an undocumented immigrant, to becoming a medical student pursuing public health and health care policy. Using feminist activism as a powerful framework to eliminate health care disparities and social injustice, she describes the experiences she gained volunteering and the problems she confronted with health care disparities based on race and ethnicity. She investigates the language barriers and cultural obstacles immigrants face that lead to social inequity, and urges us to reconceptualize health care on a grander scale to account for such disparities.

Courtney Turner’s article focused on the strength of collaborative leadership and its strength to facilitate positive change in public health. Similar to Mendez’ sentiments, she readily acknowledges the failure of our current health care system to adequately evaluate and address stigmatized populations, such as drug users. Her experiences working in a needle exchange program provided her the opportunity to witness the “flow and disconnect of public health”. Working directly with individuals and clients enabled her to see the gap between the privileged policy makers and those that their work affected. These experiences revealed to her the need to connect theory to practice, and research to action with regarding to public health policy.

Jan Oosting Kaminsky’s article details her journey and experiences into the nursing profession, and describes its close relationship to the feminist movement. She discusses gender roles within the medical field, detailing the influence feminism has had on nursing historically, and how the interaction between nurses and doctors has changed as gender shifts have occurred. I found it interesting how she explained that second-wave feminists discouraged females to pursue traditional female-oriented professions such a nursing, and encouraged them to pursue careers in male-dominated fields such as law, or business. However, she explains how the present generation has been more inclusive of both tradition and radical decisions of women pursuing professional fields, and maintains that women-dominated fields such as nursing should be recognized as empowerment and progress.

Reading these articles revealed many of the shortcomings of our current health care system and the struggles that lie ahead. I think it’s necessary for policy makers to be more informed about the circumstances of those affected by such policies, in order to formulate more efficient and effective policies to diminish health care disparities and social inequity. As Mendez articulated, we have a responsibility to share with those that have less and enable others to help and empower themselves. Recognizing this shared responsibility, and embracing it, steers us in the right direction towards universal health care and social equity.