Opposite Ends - Priscilla

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Relating to your doctor is important. Feeling that your doctor understands your individual needs, racially and culturally, will allow you to have a more honest and barrier-free relationship. It will also allow you to have a more comfortable and efficient visit. Unfortunately, being able to relate to your doctor’s ethnicity or cultural background is a privilege that many of us are not fortunate enough to have.

Trusting your physician is a huge step in achieving a healthy patient-doctor relationship. Some people may find it hard to trust someone who impacts their life so strongly if they cannot relate to that person. If you do not feel that you can trust your doctor, you probably won’t be as honest and open as you should be when you are trying to express your feelings.

Doctors can often be a huge part of our lives. They have control over jobs such as prescribing medication and they influence us to make important decisions about the healthy or unhealthy choices we make in our lives or things in our lives that affect us, such as baby making, alcohol, drugs and sexually transmitted infections. Cultural beliefs may vary on these topics and if you do not feel that you can trust your doctor, you may not be as honest and open as you can be, or they may not understand your own cultural values and how they affect you.

Having your doctor relate to you is a big plus when she or he is assessing your mental state. It will allow her or him to understand your personality and behaviour better, thus giving you an accurate diagnosis. When doctors are assessing an individual who may be depressed, they take into account the individual’s attitude and personality. The cultural barriers that young black women face during visits at the doctor’s office are very apparent. I think many young black women who are depressed get stereotyped as angry, aggressive and violent. If a physician does not fully understand how culture and race play a role in how you express yourself and your feelings, illnesses such as depression may be undermined or overlooked. It is very difficult for black females to find physicians who can relate to them. There needs to be more black physicians (especially females) so that young black females can open up and feel that there is someone who truly understands their individual needs.

In order for everyone to be able to relate to their physician, there have to be enough doctors of different ethnic backgrounds and cultures to go around. Having more doctors of different ethnicities and cultures will allow visible minorities and those of different cultures to open up and feel that they are finally understood. At the very least, acknowledging the role culture plays and realizing that the signs and symptoms of depression could look radically different depending on what culture you are from, how you communicate, what is culturally appropriate and how behaviour is affected by experiences of daily racism and discrimination.

Hear me, Understand me, Support me: What young women want you to know about depression

• Acknowledgements
• Letter to Service Providers
• About the Guide
• Challenges
• Unspoken Challenges
• Girl-Centred Health
• A Healthy Helping Relationship
• The Last Word
• A Critical Link - Referrals and Additional Resources
• In Their Words: Young Women's Stories, Advice and Wisdom