Black in Medicine: The Importance of Representation

In 2016, I went to the emergency room due to my allergies and was told after an X-ray that I would be placed on isolation because of a mass visualized in one of my lungs and because I had taken a trip to Nigeria the previous summer. I had no symptoms, though, so both the hospitalization and the isolation seemed unwarranted. Nevertheless, after 10 days of waiting, an unnecessary biopsy and an apology from a few of my doctors, I walked back to my dorm in Branscomb to study for my last final exam. The final diagnosis was early pneumonia, which was actually the original reason they ordered the X-ray.