Vital Voices: Access to lung cancer treatment

“Having a doctor of color is sort of like the icing on a cake … It is helpful, because culturally, you’re different.” -Jaymie, non-small cell lung cancer patient

Transcript

00:00

I just felt like I was a number in that office. And if I stayed there any longer, they were going to miss something, and I was going to die.

00:07

[SOOTHING MUSIC]

00:14

Regardless of the fact that the hospital is 15 minutes down the street from me, I drive 2 hours to South Carolina because I didn't like the quality of care

00:22

that I was getting here in Savannah. I had maybe, I want to say, two appointments. And I was like, if I stay with these people, I'm going to die.

00:29

There is no way that I'm going to survive this with them caring for me, because I literally felt like they just

00:35

didn't care. They weren't paying attention. I was a number. So I went through the appointment the first time, waited in the waiting

00:42

room for like three hours to be seen by the doctor for five minutes. And he didn't ask me any questions.

00:48

The whole process and the whole procedure was just as uncomfortable and unfriendly as it could possibly be. I need someone who's going to pay attention to me

00:55

and know that I have a family to get back home to. I really want the best possible care from the best possible doctor. So having a doctor of color is sort of

01:04

like the icing on a cake, to be honest. It is helpful because, culturally, you're different. You know what I mean?

01:10

Like, a Black doctor is going to understand how our diet might affect our diagnosis, how our, you know,

01:17

living situation might affect our diagnosis. Somebody who is in our community is going to understand some of the intricate details

01:24

that somebody who's not from our community wouldn't get outright. And so it's nice having a doctor who understands that and who

01:30

shares that connection with you because she can speak to you on a level that another doctor can't.