Recommended Reading for October 15, 2009

Another busy day for me, so again, this is quick! (I’m coming to you from the past!)

In the blogs:

Reminder! Liz Henry is hosting the Disability Blog Carnival! Submit your links to be included!

Getting her privileged little way:

I was out yesterday with my sister, mother and nephew in Walmart. They walked away for a moment and while I was alone looking at something on a shelf , a woman pushing a large cart came toward me sideways. Instead of asking me to move, she banged the cart into the side of my wheelchair.

I’ve seen this type of rude and boorish behavior before. I was in her way and she is – well – able bodied. Never mind that there were half a dozen other people – also able bodied- who could have moved out of her way. She saw the wheelchair and I was the one in her way.

Two Hospitals to Address Access to Care for Patients with Disabilities [US]

Under a new agreement between the hospitals and the advocacy groups, the hospitals will survey and remove physical/architectural barriers to care, purchase accessible medical devices and equipment (including mammography equipment), review and modify hospital policies, provide appropriate training to staff. The hospitals must regularly report to patients and their advocates on the progress they are making. According to the Globe, advocates hope that the changes to be made at these facilities will serve as an example for hospitals across the country.

Seriously, I have ranted more than one in my own space about wheelchair inaccessibility in hospitals. My biggest pet-peeve is inaccessible waiting rooms. Don’s is people demanding he stand (that wheelchair is not for show), and then baby talking to him. Fun times.

The Etiquette of Menstrual Concealment Preserves Pain as well as Secrecy:

Kate Seear’s newly published study about the diagnostic delay in treating endometriosis finds that menstrual etiquette rules and the culture of concealment are among the most profound causes of the delay between the first experience of menstrual pain and the diagnosis of endometriosis, which then opens avenues for relief through either surgery or medical treatment. The delay is non-trivial: research estimates an average delay of 8 years in the UK and 11 years in the US. Reasons for the delay include minimizing of menstrual pain by doctors, family members, and others, and women’s inability to distinguish between ‘normal’ menstrual pain and abnormal pain, and, Seear argues, the social sanctioning women experience when they talk about menstruation in general or menstrual pain in particular.

I was thrilled to learn that the Disability Studies Lecture Series at Temple U will be available on line in both text and audio.

I’m not just concerned, I’m utterly appalled:

A trial is set to begin in Northern Victoria, in which 30 Australian Aboriginal participants will undergo gastric banding. Because you know, banding has worked for the ‘white population’ so let’s experiment on the blacks and see if it works for them too. And that is practically a direct quote. I shit you not

In the news:

Via UnusualMusic: A Fatal Cultural Gap: Depression Among Minorities

Major depressive disorder is a common disease, occurring in approximately three out of every 20 people in the United States.

However, members of minority communities, especially first-generation immigrants, often express their illness in a manner that is different from their white counterparts, which makes it more difficult to diagnose depression in them, said Dr. Russell Lim, who teaches cultural psychiatry at UC Davis School of Medicine.

“We (who are trained in Western medical schools) are defining depression though our cultural lenses,” said U.S.-born Lim. “A cultural psychiatrist, on the other hand, looks for less specific signs” than those outlined in medical textbooks.