After debuting her documentary on racism in health care, Crystal Emery said he work’s not done. Now comes “the hard part,” she said.
The hard part: fixing the problem at the center of the film.
Emery, a New Haven filmmaker and activist, screened “The Deadliest Disease In America” Thursday afternoon at the Yale School of Medicine. It was the culmination of a project that featured interviews with health care providers and patients and their family members.
The film includes stories from the past of impoverished black men in Alabama whose syphilis went untreated so the disease could be studied by government doctors, and Puerto Rican women sterilized without their consent.
Emery’s own story was center stage in the documentary as she profiled her struggles with racism as she sought care for a debilitating form of MS (muscular dystrophy). She said some questioned her sanity for trying to make the documentary. She responded, “You have to be a little crazy to run around the country in a wheelchair and ask people to speak honestly about race.”
Click here and here for past stories about her project as it developed.
Click on her website to see a trailer of the film.
The auditorium of the Hope Building on Cedar Street was filled to capacity with Yale medical students, faculty and people from New Haven. Richard Belitsky, associate dean of education at Yale School of Medicine, said in his introduction, “Our challenge is to find ways to deliver caring, culturally sensitive health care. Our patient population is increasingly diverse, so we want to encourage our students to have conversations about race and implicit and explicit bias.”
After the film, audience members split into four groups to discuss, “What racism looks like in health care.” Emery said no reporting or recording would be allowed, in order to encourage participants to be as forthright as possible.