Descendant of First African Slaves Discusses Healthcare Disparities in PATIENT SAFETY

HARRISBURG, Pa., Dec. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With almost a million people, the Gullah/Geechee Nation is one of the largest subcultures within the United States. This little-known indigenous group are descendants of the first African slaves and inhabit the Sea Islands off the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. In an interview in PATIENT SAFETY, their chieftess and head-of-state, Queen Quet, discusses why racial disparities exist in healthcare and offers strategies to improve care for minority patients.

"A lot of people in the Black community don't want to have anything to do with the medical field because of medical apartheid [unethical human experimentation]. There's a historical legacy of being used," Queen Quet explains. "If you really want to bring about equity and equality, you will put your heart and soul into it. Be active. Be involved. That's the greatest investment you can ever make."

Among her suggested solutions to healthcare disparities are making doctors more relatable, addressing the cost of medical education, and investing in communities of color.

Other topics in the December issue of PATIENT SAFETY include:

• Wrong Site Surgery in Pennsylvania: It still happens—daily across the globe and 1.42 times weekly in Pennsylvania. Why does wrong site surgery persist and how can we eradicate it?
• I Never Had a Choice: My Lifelong Struggle with Polio: As the vaccine debate carries on, Cathy Casares Reynolds shares her struggles with polio. "There was no polio vaccine when I was a child. I wish my parents had the choice to protect me," wrote Reynolds. "Don't let the fear of one disease keep you from preventing another."
• Sepsis in the Time of COVID-19: Sepsis kills 250,000 Americans every year, yet few know the warning signs or that it kills more Americans than stroke, diabetes, and cancers of the breast, lung, prostate, or colon. Many survivors suffer with long-term effects such as depression, loss of limbs, early onset of age-related diseases like dementia, and increased risk of falls.

PATIENT SAFETY is the peer-reviewed journal of the Patient Safety Authority. A scientific publication, PATIENT SAFETY humanizes patient harm with stories, opinion pieces, and magazine-quality design. It has a readership of more than 40,000 people in 160 countries.

SOURCE Patient Safety Authority

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