Getting started on the article Pocahontas Goes to the Clinic

Ideas to get you started blogging on the article Pocahontos Goes to the Clinic.


You might think about what Mattingly points out on page 496 when she describes the questions that families have about trusting their clinicians. What are some of the questions that go through parents’ minds? How do they relate to the Invisible Knapsack that Peggy McIntosh talks about in her article “White Privilege”? Are you burdened with similar questions and concerns when you seek medical services? Why or why not? Consider the energy it takes to have to work around these kinds of concerns and people’s assumptions about you that are based on stereotypes.

You might talk about the clinic as a border zone for diversity and think about how people have to conform to particular kinds of cultural expectations. If the clinic system matches your own cultural expectations and recognizes your positively within the system, then how much energy or work does it take to be a patient? If your cultural expectations differ and if you suspect you are being categorized in less than positive ways within the system, how much energy or work does it take to be a patient?