Tag: structural violence

J. Kai Simmons (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

University of Kansas School of Medicine


J. Kai Simmons is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City, Kansas. In 2014, he graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry. Kai is currently applying for residency in Otolaryngology. During residency, he hopes to continue his work with underrepresented minorities in medicine with various mentorship programs.




Red Lines, Black Bodies

I entered the office of the Community Health Council of Wyandotte County, Kansas City, on a muggy, late-summer day during my family medicine rotation. The air-conditioned building boasted a large front room with sporadically placed desks, children’s books and toys, and what looked like a large food pantry. I flexed my elbows and wagged my arms to fan out the sweat from my Black body enshrouded in my white coat.

Forced Hysterectomies in ICE Detention Centers: A Continuation of Our Country’s Sordid History of Reproduction Control

This unrest reached a high point in September, when nurse Dawn Wooten filed a formal complaint against Dr. Mahendra Amin, a Georgia physician working at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, who she claims performed mass hysterectomies on detained immigrant women without consent. While the country reacted in shock, the reality is that coerced sterilization against communities of color is not new. The United States has a shameful history of exploiting Black and brown women’s bodies as part of a larger objective for population control rooted in white supremacy — and the medical field is partly to blame.

Structural Violence and Noncompliance: A 49-Year-Old Hispanic Woman with Metabolic Syndrome

Mrs. H’s story is just one of millions of Americans who have become victims of structural violence and suffered from the social determinants of health. With a clearer understanding of the complex factors that contribute to patients’ health outcomes, I now aim to reunite the erroneously separated domains of medicine and social sciences.

Medical Students Must Know Invisible City Lines

As I grew up, I felt these lines and had a vague idea of where they lay. I knew where in Louisville I felt “safe,” and I also knew where the “bad parts of town” were located. The lines and their forced labels serve to enhance the lives of some people, myself included, while limiting others. Two cities exist within one border separated by an undeniable feature — skin color.

Medical Students Do Not Owe You Their Trauma

Interviewers who ask these questions in a professional setting typically consider these issues to be academic — purely topics for discussion that might provide useful insight into the way the applicant views the world. But for applicants who have been affected, these issues are not merely academic and their discussion can invoke significant emotional turmoil. So before we continue to tacitly accept this shift in interviewing, it is important to consider its purpose and impact on those being interviewed.

Pranav Aurora (1 Posts)

Contributing Writer

Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University


Pranav is a fourth-year medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University in Providence, RI class of 2020. In 2014, he graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science in engineering science. He enjoys cultivating his South Asian roots and organizing with friends to build a world free from prisons, borders, and capitalism. He is inspired by Frantz Fanon and BR Ambedkar. After graduating medical school, Pranav will join SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, NY for his residency in psychiatry.