June 9, 2025 • 26 mins
In this heartfelt kickoff to Radical Care Week, Vanessa leads a powerful meditation dedicated to the women who have shaped our lives—our aunties, grandmothers, foremothers, daughters, and all those who have given care through their love and advocacy. Morgan then takes us deeper into the essential knowledge of the Patients' Bill of Rights, equipping us with the tools to advocate for loved ones navigating the hospital system or engaging with medical professionals.
Finally, our homegirl, Renate, returns for Master Class Monday to guide trekkers in the art of showing up and caring—for ourselves and for each other.
Important Disclaimer: Morgan and Vanessa are not medical experts or hospital workers. Please consult your doctor for medical advice. We also encourage reviewing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) for important protections and guidelines.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The disrespected person in America is the black woman.
But still like dust. All right, pretty girls in the
VIP. The.
(00:36):
Revolution. Will not be televised, brother.
You are like a new Joe Chuck, even if.
You are not ready for the day. It cannot always be night.
(01:02):
Freedom ya freedom ya freedom yafreedom is what you experience
in your body, in your mind when you join self-care school.
Welcome from wherever you are, whoever you are.
We are at week nine, week 9A self-care school in a 10 week
journey. That means you are doing the
(01:23):
damn thing. That means you have chosen
yourself more than you have not.It means you have said yes to
yourself and you have said no toso many things so that you can
be here today. And I am so grateful. self-care
school is powered by Girl Trek. We are 1,000,000 Black women.
We walk to heal our bodies, to inspire daughters, to reclaim
the streets of our neighborhoods.
We are on a mission to increase life expectancy for our
(01:46):
families, our sisters, for ourselves by 10 years, in 10
years. This experience includes myself.
I am your girl today. I'm very fine, Vanessa,
sometimes ambitious. VI am your girl, Vanessa.
And I am on the line with Morgan.
Are you there, Morgan? I'm here.
Magnetic MO MO Money MO Betta Mighty Moses.
(02:10):
Mountaintop Morgan. That's right, y'all get you a
superhero name. Get you a superhero name.
It's an adjective that starts with the 1st letter of your
name. It's how you can call in for
yourself what you want and who you want to be.
We're the superheroes of our neighborhoods.
We wear superhero blue so that people can spot us out in the
streets. Make sure that you get your
superhero blue at the Girl Trek store so that you can be a part
(02:31):
of the crew and the community. Y'all for this week we are going
to be walking and talking about something so important.
We're going to be walking and talking about care, walking and
talking about caregiving, walking and talking for the
caregivers because we want care for our caregivers.
That is our demand. And so I want to start this walk
(02:54):
and start this week out with a dedication and a meditation,
y'all. Because we are the daughters of
Big Momma's hands, of women who nursed their babies, their
elders, their lovers, and still got up at dawn to make grits.
We are the daughters of women who stayed when it was hard, of
(03:16):
women who put Vicks on our chest.
Prayers on our names and dignityin our walks today.
We honor them and we care for them, for others, for ourselves.
So I want us to take a moment and stand tall and let our spine
remember its power and let our shoulders remember how to rest.
(03:43):
I want us to breathe in through our nose and hold it and exhale
out. I want us to place one hand on
our heart and one hand on our belly.
Maybe it's moving up and down. As you walk, gently grab it,
(04:05):
caress it, hold it. Feel the pulse of your own life.
Feel the rhythm of someone who has carried so much.
Someone who has held space, wiped tears, sat at hospital
beds, cooked meals, driven miles, filled prescriptions,
prayed prayers that no one else heard.
(04:29):
And now say to yourself, I am allowed to be cared for too.
Say it again, I am allowed to becared for too.
Let that sink into your bones. Roll your shoulders back, circle
your neck, gently wiggle your fingers like you're letting go
(04:54):
of someone else's weight, and imagine yourself in your very
next step, walking lightly, walking freely.
You are not walking for duty today.
You are walking in devotion of yourself.
You are not walking just as a caregiver today, but as a
(05:17):
daughter of care. You inherited this love, and you
are allowed to choose how you carry it.
This walk is for you. You the caregiver.
You, the one who deserves to be cared for.
Let's go. Vanessa, thank you so much for
that meditation. It was lovely.
Y'all step out into your driveway.
(05:37):
We are going to start on this bright and beautiful Monday
morning with a self-care audit for caretaking.
All right, find your place in your driveway.
Find your starting place. Put your heels down, put your
toes down, shoulders up, down. You ready to step forward?
Step back. All right, I want you to step
(05:58):
forward. If you have your primary care
doctor's phone number saved in your phone.
I would like for you to step back.
If you have been at a doctor's appointment and you held back
asking questions because the time was running short.
(06:19):
I would like for you to step forward.
If you have a designated health advocate or proxy on the record,
like written down a designated health advocate or proxy, take a
step forward. I want you to take a step back
if you do not have a written health history anywhere, written
or saved in your phone or a mobile app health history.
(06:41):
If you don't have a written health history, take a step
back. I would like for you to take a
step forward if you can name thetop three medications that
you're on and why you take them.And take a step forward if you
ain't on no medication too. And I would like for you to take
(07:04):
a step back if you have missed or avoided any preventive care
appointments in the last year. Take a step back.
Y'all start walking. The first thing you do for
self-care is you walk 15 minutesin the direction of your
healthiest, most fulfilled life.And you turn around and walk
back. And in that 30 minutes you have
done a life saving habits all and you've been doing it for 9
weeks. So that's the first just very
(07:26):
practical thing you can do for self-care.
But before we get started, for today, we are going to welcome
our sister Renata in for a master class Monday to give us
just a worldview of what's happening in our community
around caretaking. So let's get to it.
Are you there, Renata? Hey y'all, happy Monday.
(07:46):
Happy Monday. I want to just get the global
perspective of the state of caretaking in this world.
So Renata, do you have our our Master Class Monday report for
us? You know, I do.
So I want to say caregiving for black women just feels like a
natural thing, right? And it's, I guess, very natural
(08:09):
that we represent nearly 40% of caregivers across the globe.
We spend more time caregiving per week than any other race of
people, with an average of 31.2 hours spent caring for others.
We're likely to provide high intensity care, with 54%
(08:30):
providing 40 or more hours of care per week.
And that's compared to, yeah, that's compared, compared to
white caregivers who give about 38.6% of caregiving hours.
And we're also more likely to care for adults who have
dementia, even with the lack of formal training and support.
We are culturally expected and feels an obligation.
(08:53):
And as a as a ambassador of an eldest daughter club over here,
I understand that completely. We feel culturally obligated to
care for our elders often in home instead of in facilities.
And so we carry an extra burden or responsibility of daily life,
our own personal responsibilities, work and
(09:14):
caregiving. As far as our partners, husbands
or romantic partners, we are usually expected to live about 7
years longer than them, which makes it more likely that we'll
be their caregiver. So carrying that extra
responsibility for an extended amount of time does have an
impact on employment. It has an impact on mental
(09:37):
health. So Black caregivers report less
isolation and anxiety than theirthan their white counterparts,
however still face this significant emotional strain.
We can struggle with things likeburnout and stress, unpaid leave
and wage loss. So Black women need
approximately 2.9 million hours of leave of absence each year,
(09:59):
but only 1.1 millionaire taken. And so instead of taking that
leave, women are still continuing to carry on and take
care of people and take care of everyone else and do the work
that results in a loss of about $223.7 million a year of lost
wages, of taking unpaid leave. There's all kinds of different
(10:25):
statistics that are out there about how we show up for other
people, and I'm just really excited this week to hear about
how we're going to show up for ourselves.
All right, Renata, that is perfect, perfect context for
what we're going to get into today, y'all.
We are going to give you all of your rights as patients.
We're going to give you rights as bedside advocates.
(10:49):
We're going to talk about what it means to care for your
extended family, like kinship care, adoptive care.
We're going to talk to you aboutwhat it means to care for
mothers and maternal rights. We're going to talk about all of
these sorts of things that are in kind of in under this
umbrella of caretaking in our community.
And all of that is required. It is required because we talked
(11:13):
about the Tubman doctrine. And Vanessa, this has been like,
I think a really healthy tensionin in in black culture and
particularly black female culture, and even specifically
in girl trek is this notion around self-care and then
service to others and how we cancreate like a healthy balance
between self-care and service toothers.
(11:34):
For those who are new to the line, Vanessa, will you explain
what the Tubman doctrine is? Yeah, it is a philosophy.
It is the guiding principles of Girl Trek.
It is a road map for us to live by.
It's four simple rules. The first one is never ask
permission to save your own life.
It's a call to action to start walking right now in the
(11:56):
direction of everything that fills you up and away from
everything that doesn't. The second part of the Tubman
doctrine is when you learn the way.
Go back and get a sister just like Harriet did.
Bring somebody along with you. The third one is to rally your
allies because this journey and this healing journey will
require allies. And the fourth one, and the most
important, is to find joy. It is our birthright.
(12:17):
It is the prescription for how we are going to live longer and
it is what we deserve. I love that we start with the
Tubman doctrine because one of the most celebrated important
caretakers in African American history was Harriet Tubman.
She had a home for, for senior citizens.
She called it the home for the aged up in Auburn, NY.
(12:39):
She was an incredible caretaker.And I, I want to talk about her
in the Tubman doctrine because sometimes when we think about
caretaking, we think about kind of laborious obligation of like
lifting grandma up out of the tub and putting her back over
here at these things. But what you just described,
Vanessa, and what we believe everybody is that caretaking
starts with caretaking of yourself.
(13:01):
That's Step 1 of caretaking of your sisters.
So not somebody who necessarily is at the end of the ending
stages of her life, but somebodywho might need a hug, somebody
who might need a kind word today, somebody who might need a
phone call, somebody who might need grace, somebody who might
need kindness. And thinking about how we are
caretakers there. And then thinking about the
(13:23):
allies that we need to rally in order to take care because we
cannot do it alone. We cannot do it alone.
And then this notion of finding joy in our care, that care does
not just have to be duty. Care can also be joy.
Think about every auntie in yourlife that made you belly laugh
deeply. She too was a caretaker.
So even reclaiming these terms so that they're not just onerous
(13:46):
or they're not just laden in responsibility, but care is an
ethos that we have and it is a balancing act between caring for
ourselves and caring for others.It is downright biblical, right?
That we care for ourselves as wewould care for others and we
care for others as we would carefor ourselves.
So that's what this week is going to be about, y'all.
(14:08):
So first of all, y'all, I'm not an expert.
Please consult your doctor and everything for self-care school
and consult your God and consultyour common sense because some
of this stuff is common sense. And this is a conversation where
we talk about the things that maybe we've already known but
forgotten and maybe this is collective action so that we can
act more bravely. There are some statistics I just
(14:28):
wanted to share. Black women are three times more
likely to die from childbirth related causes in the US
regardless of their income or their education.
And largely that is in part due because the doctors are not
listening to Black women when they say they are in pain or
(14:50):
when they express their wishes. They are not listening to us.
So again, Black women are three times more likely to die from
childbirth related causes duringhospitalizations in the United
States of America, regardless tohow much money you make and
(15:11):
regardless to if you got a PhD or not.
They are not listening to us. Uninsured patients are more
likely to receive delayed diagnosis, shorter hospital
stays, and fewer treatment options.
Because if it don't make dollarsfor these systems, it don't make
sense. So understand that so that you
(15:34):
can advocate that you are. If you don't have insurance, you
are less likely to get the care that you are owed and you
deserve and you need. Studies show that providers
interrupt female patients way more often than they do male
patients, that they're less likely to prescribe pain
(15:54):
medication to black patients, and that they diagnose mental
illness over physical conditionsand low income populations.
And it is a good question. So as we start to talk about
like just moving into the hospital, just picture this big
white hospital building with theambulance ring in the front and
(16:15):
you, you coming in by yourself or you were willing your auntie
in or whatever it however you were entering, you should know
that you carry in your purse some rights, y'all, you carry a
Bill of Rights that is called the patient Bill of Rights.
And in that right, you should never be discriminated against
in your care. You should always be informed
(16:38):
and you should always consent toany care before you get
treatment. You have a right to an
interpreter and accessible communication.
You have the right to refuse treatment.
You have the right to a support person, especially if you are
cognitively delayed or have any kind of disability.
You are. You are.
(16:59):
You have a right to a support person.
There is some ADA muscle that you can really flex here, y'all.
And if you don't know ADA, that's the Americans with
Disabilities Act. It is a powerful act in
healthcare. And a lot of people think
American Disabilities Act just has to do with mobility,
Vanessa, like you know, like ramps to get into places and
(17:21):
that sort of thing. But the American Disabilities
Act is really a powerful piece of legislation.
And then you are entitled to extra time to process the
medical decisions, particularly people who are, who are
suffering from dementia or who are suffering from any cognitive
delays. Lots of autoimmune diseases or
(17:42):
hormonal diseases create cognitive like brain fog.
And you, you are entitled by theAmerican Disabilities Act.
You are entitled to longer times.
Even if the doctor says, I have 15 minutes with you, you can
evoke, it's, you can have this kind of power move where you say
I am requesting reasonable accommodations under the
(18:05):
American Disabilities Act or under ADA.
And you can just say that pleasedocument that, that I've made
this request and they are required by law, law in every
hospital across this country to accommodate you.
Yeah. So I also wanted to talk about
if you are caring for somebody else in the hospital setting and
(18:28):
you are an advocate for a person, first of all, showing up
already increases their odds exponentially that they're going
to get more excellent care. So congratulations, just by
showing up with your loved one that you've increased the
likelihood that they get the life saving care that they need
exponentially. So be visible, be present.
(18:50):
Some people recommend having a badge or a label with your name
on it and the relationship to the patient and just saying, hi,
my name is Morgan. I'm helping with my mother
manage communication and care decisions.
So you can talk to both of us. And just letting it be known,
not just standing in the corner and just, you know, and just
observing or being creepy in thecorner, but really asserting
(19:11):
yourself and saying that you area that you are, are there to
advocate for your loved one. Can I get some?
Yeah. My Auntie Peggy, I We have been
caregivers in our family for people who've experienced all
sorts of health challenges consistently.
My great grandmother and then myUncle Rex and then my
grandfather. And both in all those cases, my
(19:32):
Aunt Peggy always had a laminated sheet that had their
medical history like, and she had it blown up.
So it was like maybe like 11 by 16, like that large that it
would go on the wall like a poster in their room and even in
their rooms at home. She had one so that if the
ambulance would come in, they would be able to quickly read
it. And then she always had one to
take with her to the doctors. But it always had like the major
(19:55):
medical history stuff that they had experienced, what
medications they were on and like emergency phone numbers.
And she had it laminated. I remember my grandfather, even
Rex, he always had it like on the wall and then.
When they had to have like hospital stays or long term care
stays and that space they all she always if you went into
their rooms they would have it there and it would have like her
phone number on there and it would have like information
(20:17):
about them on there. It's so perfect, Vanessa, It's
so perfect. The number two piece of advice,
if you're going to be an advocate, is to document
everything. And you can do it with a written
log. You can do it with a voice note.
You can record the visit, You can record the visit and you can
(20:37):
laminate it so that it doesn't get destroyed.
I love what Peggy did. You can laminate it and the
things that should go on this documentation are what
medications are given and when, like what is the dosage and when
that they're taking. You can document who's entering
the room and what time they're entering and what they're saying
because oftentimes medical malpractice happens with delayed
(20:59):
service. And so like people are not
getting, you know, their medications on time or they're
not getting their Ivs on time orall the different things that
you need. So documenting who enters the
room and then what symptoms you observe.
And then Vanessa said there's a three-step check in method that
when you are a part of the conversation with the doctor is
(21:20):
just making sure you ask questions like this.
Can you explain what this is andwhy it's needed?
What are the risks if we say no and wait and get a second
opinion? And then what are the
alternatives that we can take? And with that three-step check
in, I want to bring in an experthere.
I saw a medical professional on Black Women's Health Imperative.
(21:43):
Shout out to Black Women's Health Imperative, who's doing
incredible work advocating for all kind of caretakers across
the world, particularly Black women with everything from fair
pay to all sorts of groundbreaking research.
So shout out to our sisters at Black Women's Health Imperative.
But I saw on their Instagram this really beautiful piece of
(22:04):
advice so I wanted to play this for us all.
Here's how you can advocate for yourself if your doctor doesn't
take your concerns seriously. I'm a fourth year medical
student and one of the first things we learned in medical
school is how to put together a differential diagnosis.
It basically means tell me all the other things that it could
be. For example, maybe you have a
headache or you're feeling lightheaded or have chest pain,
(22:27):
abdominal pain, or you just feelreally sad and you bring this up
to your doctor or clinician and they just blow it off.
Oh, it's, it's probably nothing.I want you to ask them, what is
your differential diagnosis for this chest pain, for this
abdominal pain, for my Lightheadedness?
This is where you catch them offguard because they weren't
expecting you to know that word.So then they'll have to list it
(22:49):
out. Well, your chest pain, it
doesn't mean it could be nothing.
Or it could be a myocardial infarction.
It could be a pulmonary embolism.
It could be an aortic dissection, it could be blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. So next you ask them, how have
you ruled those other ones out? Now they got to explain things
to you. Even better, ask them what's the
evidence for and against that differential?
(23:14):
Well, like I, I guess it could be a heart attack because you
know, you're having the chest pain, the pressure, you know,
it's worse, the shortness of breath is worse with activity
and you know, the classic signs.How have I ruled that out?
That's a good question. Maybe I should get that EKG.
(23:34):
Y'all, because people are under so much pressure in the hospital
systems and doctors are under somuch pressure to to produce, as
we talked about before, oftentimes they're making really
rushed and early diagnosis on what's going on.
And so this sister is saying askfor a differential diagnosis, a
different, that's just another fancy way of saying a different
diagnosis. Like, OK, we hear you.
(23:56):
We hear you ma'am. We hear you, doctor, that this
is, this is what's going on withmy mother, but is can you give
us a differential diagnosis? Can you give us a different
diagnosis? And it forces them to think
through alternatives of what might be going on instead of
rushing to decision. And this one piece of advice has
saved so many lives because theycannot rule out that other
(24:18):
things are happening and they are then required to administer
more tests. I want to share with you all
that there's also another piece of legislation that I didn't
know about that I think is really helpful, and it is called
the Emergency care or the Emergency Medical Treatment and
Labor Act, EMTALA, the EmergencyMedical Treatment and Labor Act.
(24:42):
It's AUS federal law that requires hospitals to treat
everybody who comes into the emergency room.
Now, I kind of knew it because we kind of all knew whether you
got insurance or not, you just go to the ER and just think
about it later. We kind of knew that growing up
as like people with limited means.
But there is an actual federal law says regardless of your
(25:02):
insurance status or your abilityto pay, that you have to be
treated in the emergency in the ER.
And so I want people out there who may be underinsured or who
may be uninsured to know that ifit is life or death, you
definitely, definitely should goto the emergency room to get to
receive your care. Under the EMTLA Act medical
(25:24):
screening, everybody has the right to being evaluated
stabilizing treatment. So if you're found to have an
emergency condition and you haveto be stabilized before you get
discharged, you they have to stabilize you and keep you there
until, until you're stable before they can transfer you or
or transfer you or discharge you.
They can't have any delays basedon payment.
(25:46):
And so a lot of times, and I have, I've personally
experienced this, like going to the hospital as an advocate or a
friend or a loved one with somebody who did not have
insurance. And they just make you sit there
in the hospital trying to figureout how you going to figure out
how to pay for it. And so that is against federal
law, y'all, almost every hospital in these United States
of America is required to give you a medical advocate,
(26:10):
particularly if you were going to the hospital alone and
particularly if you do not feel good.
So you can just ask, can I have a medical advocate sit in here
with me and then just wait untilthey go and get it?
And I didn't know that. I didn't know that you could ask
for somebody in the hospital system to come and be your
advocate and sit with you. So those are some of the tips
(26:32):
that I have, some of the tips and tricks for both knowing your
rights when you're in the hospital, knowing the laws like
ADA, knowing the laws like the emergency room protection law,
and also knowing how to advocatefor the people that you love or
in the hospital. So that's what we got today on
this Monday, on this master class Monday.
(26:53):
And so be well everybody. We'll see you tomorrow.
We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The disrespected person in America is the black woman.
But still like dust. All right, pretty girls in the
VIP. The.
(00:36):
Revolution. Will not be televised, brother.
You are like a new Joe Chuck, even if.
You are not ready for the day. It cannot always be night.
(01:02):
Freedom ya freedom ya freedom yafreedom is what you experience
in your body, in your mind when you join self-care school.
Welcome from wherever you are, whoever you are.
We are at week nine, week 9A self-care school in a 10 week
journey. That means you are doing the
(01:23):
damn thing. That means you have chosen
yourself more than you have not.It means you have said yes to
yourself and you have said no toso many things so that you can
be here today. And I am so grateful. self-care
school is powered by Girl Trek. We are 1,000,000 Black women.
We walk to heal our bodies, to inspire daughters, to reclaim
the streets of our neighborhoods.
We are on a mission to increase life expectancy for our
(01:46):
families, our sisters, for ourselves by 10 years, in 10
years. This experience includes myself.
I am your girl today. I'm very fine, Vanessa,
sometimes ambitious. VI am your girl, Vanessa.
And I am on the line with Morgan.
Are you there, Morgan? I'm here.
Magnetic MO MO Money MO Betta Mighty Moses.
(02:10):
Mountaintop Morgan. That's right, y'all get you a
superhero name. Get you a superhero name.
It's an adjective that starts with the 1st letter of your
name. It's how you can call in for
yourself what you want and who you want to be.
We're the superheroes of our neighborhoods.
We wear superhero blue so that people can spot us out in the
streets. Make sure that you get your
superhero blue at the Girl Trek store so that you can be a part
(02:31):
of the crew and the community. Y'all for this week we are going
to be walking and talking about something so important.
We're going to be walking and talking about care, walking and
talking about caregiving, walking and talking for the
caregivers because we want care for our caregivers.
That is our demand. And so I want to start this walk
(02:54):
and start this week out with a dedication and a meditation,
y'all. Because we are the daughters of
Big Momma's hands, of women who nursed their babies, their
elders, their lovers, and still got up at dawn to make grits.
We are the daughters of women who stayed when it was hard, of
(03:16):
women who put Vicks on our chest.
Prayers on our names and dignityin our walks today.
We honor them and we care for them, for others, for ourselves.
So I want us to take a moment and stand tall and let our spine
remember its power and let our shoulders remember how to rest.
(03:43):
I want us to breathe in through our nose and hold it and exhale
out. I want us to place one hand on
our heart and one hand on our belly.
Maybe it's moving up and down. As you walk, gently grab it,
(04:05):
caress it, hold it. Feel the pulse of your own life.
Feel the rhythm of someone who has carried so much.
Someone who has held space, wiped tears, sat at hospital
beds, cooked meals, driven miles, filled prescriptions,
prayed prayers that no one else heard.
(04:29):
And now say to yourself, I am allowed to be cared for too.
Say it again, I am allowed to becared for too.
Let that sink into your bones. Roll your shoulders back, circle
your neck, gently wiggle your fingers like you're letting go
(04:54):
of someone else's weight, and imagine yourself in your very
next step, walking lightly, walking freely.
You are not walking for duty today.
You are walking in devotion of yourself.
You are not walking just as a caregiver today, but as a
(05:17):
daughter of care. You inherited this love, and you
are allowed to choose how you carry it.
This walk is for you. You the caregiver.
You, the one who deserves to be cared for.
Let's go. Vanessa, thank you so much for
that meditation. It was lovely.
Y'all step out into your driveway.
(05:37):
We are going to start on this bright and beautiful Monday
morning with a self-care audit for caretaking.
All right, find your place in your driveway.
Find your starting place. Put your heels down, put your
toes down, shoulders up, down. You ready to step forward?
Step back. All right, I want you to step
(05:58):
forward. If you have your primary care
doctor's phone number saved in your phone.
I would like for you to step back.
If you have been at a doctor's appointment and you held back
asking questions because the time was running short.
(06:19):
I would like for you to step forward.
If you have a designated health advocate or proxy on the record,
like written down a designated health advocate or proxy, take a
step forward. I want you to take a step back
if you do not have a written health history anywhere, written
or saved in your phone or a mobile app health history.
(06:41):
If you don't have a written health history, take a step
back. I would like for you to take a
step forward if you can name thetop three medications that
you're on and why you take them.And take a step forward if you
ain't on no medication too. And I would like for you to take
(07:04):
a step back if you have missed or avoided any preventive care
appointments in the last year. Take a step back.
Y'all start walking. The first thing you do for
self-care is you walk 15 minutesin the direction of your
healthiest, most fulfilled life.And you turn around and walk
back. And in that 30 minutes you have
done a life saving habits all and you've been doing it for 9
weeks. So that's the first just very
(07:26):
practical thing you can do for self-care.
But before we get started, for today, we are going to welcome
our sister Renata in for a master class Monday to give us
just a worldview of what's happening in our community
around caretaking. So let's get to it.
Are you there, Renata? Hey y'all, happy Monday.
(07:46):
Happy Monday. I want to just get the global
perspective of the state of caretaking in this world.
So Renata, do you have our our Master Class Monday report for
us? You know, I do.
So I want to say caregiving for black women just feels like a
natural thing, right? And it's, I guess, very natural
(08:09):
that we represent nearly 40% of caregivers across the globe.
We spend more time caregiving per week than any other race of
people, with an average of 31.2 hours spent caring for others.
We're likely to provide high intensity care, with 54%
(08:30):
providing 40 or more hours of care per week.
And that's compared to, yeah, that's compared, compared to
white caregivers who give about 38.6% of caregiving hours.
And we're also more likely to care for adults who have
dementia, even with the lack of formal training and support.
We are culturally expected and feels an obligation.
(08:53):
And as a as a ambassador of an eldest daughter club over here,
I understand that completely. We feel culturally obligated to
care for our elders often in home instead of in facilities.
And so we carry an extra burden or responsibility of daily life,
our own personal responsibilities, work and
(09:14):
caregiving. As far as our partners, husbands
or romantic partners, we are usually expected to live about 7
years longer than them, which makes it more likely that we'll
be their caregiver. So carrying that extra
responsibility for an extended amount of time does have an
impact on employment. It has an impact on mental
(09:37):
health. So Black caregivers report less
isolation and anxiety than theirthan their white counterparts,
however still face this significant emotional strain.
We can struggle with things likeburnout and stress, unpaid leave
and wage loss. So Black women need
approximately 2.9 million hours of leave of absence each year,
(09:59):
but only 1.1 millionaire taken. And so instead of taking that
leave, women are still continuing to carry on and take
care of people and take care of everyone else and do the work
that results in a loss of about $223.7 million a year of lost
wages, of taking unpaid leave. There's all kinds of different
(10:25):
statistics that are out there about how we show up for other
people, and I'm just really excited this week to hear about
how we're going to show up for ourselves.
All right, Renata, that is perfect, perfect context for
what we're going to get into today, y'all.
We are going to give you all of your rights as patients.
We're going to give you rights as bedside advocates.
(10:49):
We're going to talk about what it means to care for your
extended family, like kinship care, adoptive care.
We're going to talk to you aboutwhat it means to care for
mothers and maternal rights. We're going to talk about all of
these sorts of things that are in kind of in under this
umbrella of caretaking in our community.
And all of that is required. It is required because we talked
(11:13):
about the Tubman doctrine. And Vanessa, this has been like,
I think a really healthy tensionin in in black culture and
particularly black female culture, and even specifically
in girl trek is this notion around self-care and then
service to others and how we cancreate like a healthy balance
between self-care and service toothers.
(11:34):
For those who are new to the line, Vanessa, will you explain
what the Tubman doctrine is? Yeah, it is a philosophy.
It is the guiding principles of Girl Trek.
It is a road map for us to live by.
It's four simple rules. The first one is never ask
permission to save your own life.
It's a call to action to start walking right now in the
(11:56):
direction of everything that fills you up and away from
everything that doesn't. The second part of the Tubman
doctrine is when you learn the way.
Go back and get a sister just like Harriet did.
Bring somebody along with you. The third one is to rally your
allies because this journey and this healing journey will
require allies. And the fourth one, and the most
important, is to find joy. It is our birthright.
(12:17):
It is the prescription for how we are going to live longer and
it is what we deserve. I love that we start with the
Tubman doctrine because one of the most celebrated important
caretakers in African American history was Harriet Tubman.
She had a home for, for senior citizens.
She called it the home for the aged up in Auburn, NY.
(12:39):
She was an incredible caretaker.And I, I want to talk about her
in the Tubman doctrine because sometimes when we think about
caretaking, we think about kind of laborious obligation of like
lifting grandma up out of the tub and putting her back over
here at these things. But what you just described,
Vanessa, and what we believe everybody is that caretaking
starts with caretaking of yourself.
(13:01):
That's Step 1 of caretaking of your sisters.
So not somebody who necessarily is at the end of the ending
stages of her life, but somebodywho might need a hug, somebody
who might need a kind word today, somebody who might need a
phone call, somebody who might need grace, somebody who might
need kindness. And thinking about how we are
caretakers there. And then thinking about the
(13:23):
allies that we need to rally in order to take care because we
cannot do it alone. We cannot do it alone.
And then this notion of finding joy in our care, that care does
not just have to be duty. Care can also be joy.
Think about every auntie in yourlife that made you belly laugh
deeply. She too was a caretaker.
So even reclaiming these terms so that they're not just onerous
(13:46):
or they're not just laden in responsibility, but care is an
ethos that we have and it is a balancing act between caring for
ourselves and caring for others.It is downright biblical, right?
That we care for ourselves as wewould care for others and we
care for others as we would carefor ourselves.
So that's what this week is going to be about, y'all.
(14:08):
So first of all, y'all, I'm not an expert.
Please consult your doctor and everything for self-care school
and consult your God and consultyour common sense because some
of this stuff is common sense. And this is a conversation where
we talk about the things that maybe we've already known but
forgotten and maybe this is collective action so that we can
act more bravely. There are some statistics I just
(14:28):
wanted to share. Black women are three times more
likely to die from childbirth related causes in the US
regardless of their income or their education.
And largely that is in part due because the doctors are not
listening to Black women when they say they are in pain or
(14:50):
when they express their wishes. They are not listening to us.
So again, Black women are three times more likely to die from
childbirth related causes duringhospitalizations in the United
States of America, regardless tohow much money you make and
(15:11):
regardless to if you got a PhD or not.
They are not listening to us. Uninsured patients are more
likely to receive delayed diagnosis, shorter hospital
stays, and fewer treatment options.
Because if it don't make dollarsfor these systems, it don't make
sense. So understand that so that you
(15:34):
can advocate that you are. If you don't have insurance, you
are less likely to get the care that you are owed and you
deserve and you need. Studies show that providers
interrupt female patients way more often than they do male
patients, that they're less likely to prescribe pain
(15:54):
medication to black patients, and that they diagnose mental
illness over physical conditionsand low income populations.
And it is a good question. So as we start to talk about
like just moving into the hospital, just picture this big
white hospital building with theambulance ring in the front and
(16:15):
you, you coming in by yourself or you were willing your auntie
in or whatever it however you were entering, you should know
that you carry in your purse some rights, y'all, you carry a
Bill of Rights that is called the patient Bill of Rights.
And in that right, you should never be discriminated against
in your care. You should always be informed
(16:38):
and you should always consent toany care before you get
treatment. You have a right to an
interpreter and accessible communication.
You have the right to refuse treatment.
You have the right to a support person, especially if you are
cognitively delayed or have any kind of disability.
You are. You are.
(16:59):
You have a right to a support person.
There is some ADA muscle that you can really flex here, y'all.
And if you don't know ADA, that's the Americans with
Disabilities Act. It is a powerful act in
healthcare. And a lot of people think
American Disabilities Act just has to do with mobility,
Vanessa, like you know, like ramps to get into places and
(17:21):
that sort of thing. But the American Disabilities
Act is really a powerful piece of legislation.
And then you are entitled to extra time to process the
medical decisions, particularly people who are, who are
suffering from dementia or who are suffering from any cognitive
delays. Lots of autoimmune diseases or
(17:42):
hormonal diseases create cognitive like brain fog.
And you, you are entitled by theAmerican Disabilities Act.
You are entitled to longer times.
Even if the doctor says, I have 15 minutes with you, you can
evoke, it's, you can have this kind of power move where you say
I am requesting reasonable accommodations under the
(18:05):
American Disabilities Act or under ADA.
And you can just say that pleasedocument that, that I've made
this request and they are required by law, law in every
hospital across this country to accommodate you.
Yeah. So I also wanted to talk about
if you are caring for somebody else in the hospital setting and
(18:28):
you are an advocate for a person, first of all, showing up
already increases their odds exponentially that they're going
to get more excellent care. So congratulations, just by
showing up with your loved one that you've increased the
likelihood that they get the life saving care that they need
exponentially. So be visible, be present.
(18:50):
Some people recommend having a badge or a label with your name
on it and the relationship to the patient and just saying, hi,
my name is Morgan. I'm helping with my mother
manage communication and care decisions.
So you can talk to both of us. And just letting it be known,
not just standing in the corner and just, you know, and just
observing or being creepy in thecorner, but really asserting
(19:11):
yourself and saying that you area that you are, are there to
advocate for your loved one. Can I get some?
Yeah. My Auntie Peggy, I We have been
caregivers in our family for people who've experienced all
sorts of health challenges consistently.
My great grandmother and then myUncle Rex and then my
grandfather. And both in all those cases, my
(19:32):
Aunt Peggy always had a laminated sheet that had their
medical history like, and she had it blown up.
So it was like maybe like 11 by 16, like that large that it
would go on the wall like a poster in their room and even in
their rooms at home. She had one so that if the
ambulance would come in, they would be able to quickly read
it. And then she always had one to
take with her to the doctors. But it always had like the major
(19:55):
medical history stuff that they had experienced, what
medications they were on and like emergency phone numbers.
And she had it laminated. I remember my grandfather, even
Rex, he always had it like on the wall and then.
When they had to have like hospital stays or long term care
stays and that space they all she always if you went into
their rooms they would have it there and it would have like her
phone number on there and it would have like information
(20:17):
about them on there. It's so perfect, Vanessa, It's
so perfect. The number two piece of advice,
if you're going to be an advocate, is to document
everything. And you can do it with a written
log. You can do it with a voice note.
You can record the visit, You can record the visit and you can
(20:37):
laminate it so that it doesn't get destroyed.
I love what Peggy did. You can laminate it and the
things that should go on this documentation are what
medications are given and when, like what is the dosage and when
that they're taking. You can document who's entering
the room and what time they're entering and what they're saying
because oftentimes medical malpractice happens with delayed
(20:59):
service. And so like people are not
getting, you know, their medications on time or they're
not getting their Ivs on time orall the different things that
you need. So documenting who enters the
room and then what symptoms you observe.
And then Vanessa said there's a three-step check in method that
when you are a part of the conversation with the doctor is
(21:20):
just making sure you ask questions like this.
Can you explain what this is andwhy it's needed?
What are the risks if we say no and wait and get a second
opinion? And then what are the
alternatives that we can take? And with that three-step check
in, I want to bring in an experthere.
I saw a medical professional on Black Women's Health Imperative.
(21:43):
Shout out to Black Women's Health Imperative, who's doing
incredible work advocating for all kind of caretakers across
the world, particularly Black women with everything from fair
pay to all sorts of groundbreaking research.
So shout out to our sisters at Black Women's Health Imperative.
But I saw on their Instagram this really beautiful piece of
(22:04):
advice so I wanted to play this for us all.
Here's how you can advocate for yourself if your doctor doesn't
take your concerns seriously. I'm a fourth year medical
student and one of the first things we learned in medical
school is how to put together a differential diagnosis.
It basically means tell me all the other things that it could
be. For example, maybe you have a
headache or you're feeling lightheaded or have chest pain,
(22:27):
abdominal pain, or you just feelreally sad and you bring this up
to your doctor or clinician and they just blow it off.
Oh, it's, it's probably nothing.I want you to ask them, what is
your differential diagnosis for this chest pain, for this
abdominal pain, for my Lightheadedness?
This is where you catch them offguard because they weren't
expecting you to know that word.So then they'll have to list it
(22:49):
out. Well, your chest pain, it
doesn't mean it could be nothing.
Or it could be a myocardial infarction.
It could be a pulmonary embolism.
It could be an aortic dissection, it could be blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. So next you ask them, how have
you ruled those other ones out? Now they got to explain things
to you. Even better, ask them what's the
evidence for and against that differential?
(23:14):
Well, like I, I guess it could be a heart attack because you
know, you're having the chest pain, the pressure, you know,
it's worse, the shortness of breath is worse with activity
and you know, the classic signs.How have I ruled that out?
That's a good question. Maybe I should get that EKG.
(23:34):
Y'all, because people are under so much pressure in the hospital
systems and doctors are under somuch pressure to to produce, as
we talked about before, oftentimes they're making really
rushed and early diagnosis on what's going on.
And so this sister is saying askfor a differential diagnosis, a
different, that's just another fancy way of saying a different
diagnosis. Like, OK, we hear you.
(23:56):
We hear you ma'am. We hear you, doctor, that this
is, this is what's going on withmy mother, but is can you give
us a differential diagnosis? Can you give us a different
diagnosis? And it forces them to think
through alternatives of what might be going on instead of
rushing to decision. And this one piece of advice has
saved so many lives because theycannot rule out that other
(24:18):
things are happening and they are then required to administer
more tests. I want to share with you all
that there's also another piece of legislation that I didn't
know about that I think is really helpful, and it is called
the Emergency care or the Emergency Medical Treatment and
Labor Act, EMTALA, the EmergencyMedical Treatment and Labor Act.
(24:42):
It's AUS federal law that requires hospitals to treat
everybody who comes into the emergency room.
Now, I kind of knew it because we kind of all knew whether you
got insurance or not, you just go to the ER and just think
about it later. We kind of knew that growing up
as like people with limited means.
But there is an actual federal law says regardless of your
(25:02):
insurance status or your abilityto pay, that you have to be
treated in the emergency in the ER.
And so I want people out there who may be underinsured or who
may be uninsured to know that ifit is life or death, you
definitely, definitely should goto the emergency room to get to
receive your care. Under the EMTLA Act medical
(25:24):
screening, everybody has the right to being evaluated
stabilizing treatment. So if you're found to have an
emergency condition and you haveto be stabilized before you get
discharged, you they have to stabilize you and keep you there
until, until you're stable before they can transfer you or
or transfer you or discharge you.
They can't have any delays basedon payment.
(25:46):
And so a lot of times, and I have, I've personally
experienced this, like going to the hospital as an advocate or a
friend or a loved one with somebody who did not have
insurance. And they just make you sit there
in the hospital trying to figureout how you going to figure out
how to pay for it. And so that is against federal
law, y'all, almost every hospital in these United States
of America is required to give you a medical advocate,
(26:10):
particularly if you were going to the hospital alone and
particularly if you do not feel good.
So you can just ask, can I have a medical advocate sit in here
with me and then just wait untilthey go and get it?
And I didn't know that. I didn't know that you could ask
for somebody in the hospital system to come and be your
advocate and sit with you. So those are some of the tips
(26:32):
that I have, some of the tips and tricks for both knowing your
rights when you're in the hospital, knowing the laws like
ADA, knowing the laws like the emergency room protection law,
and also knowing how to advocatefor the people that you love or
in the hospital. So that's what we got today on
this Monday, on this master class Monday.
(26:53):
And so be well everybody. We'll see you tomorrow.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.