Medical Mistrust and Organ Donation: The Black Experience
Posted in On Borrowed Time
Mistrust is rooted in lived experience, medical racism, systemic neglect, and a history that still shapes Black patients’ choices.
This article is part of “On Borrowed Time” a series by Anissa Durham that examines the people, policies, and systems that hurt or help Black patients in need of an organ transplant.
Every day across the country, people renew or apply for driver’s licenses. Toward the end of the form sits a deceptively simple question: Are you willing to register as an organ, eye, and tissue donor?
For 40-year-old Tamika Smith, the answer is obvious: no.
“I have my yearly, I get my checkups, I stay on top of my preventative care, but I don’t trust them,” she says of the medical system. “I don’t care what the race of the doctor is, I don’t trust them.”
Her refusal to become an organ donor comes from her personal experience. And to understand her answer, you have to understand what the medical system has already taken from her.
#BlackHealthMatters, #OrganDonation, #MedicalMistrust
