“Believe My Pain”: Elaine Welteroth Highlights How Black Medical Patients Are Mistreated And What Can Be Done About It

September is Pain Awareness Month, and Advil is demonstrating their commitment to addressing the racial biases experienced by Black patients who often struggle with adverse treatment during their pain diagnoses.

In their latest campaign, “The Advil Pain Equity Project,” the pain relief brand is awarding both Morehouse School of Medicine and the nonprofit BLKHLTH monetary grants. These funds will be used to get to the crux of the issue and will “support the development of patient resources and medical school course development to address pain equity at the source.”

Another component of The Advil Pain Equity Project is a first of its kind storytelling campaign, with an inaugural roundtable led by award-winning journalist Elaine Welteroth, featuring Dr. Uché Blackstock, M.D. and five Black patients who came together to discuss their personal real-life experiences and endured inequities as they navigated the racist U.S. medical system to try and alleviate their pain.

Per a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article, “Research has consistently documented inequities in the quality of care experienced by Black patients.”

“Several studies have reported associations between Black patients’ experiences of perceived bias and discrimination with worse pain outcomes. Physician implicit bias has been associated with false beliefs that Black patients have greater pain tolerance, thicker skin, and feel less pain than White patients,” continues the JAMA article.

Unfortunately, Welteroth has experienced this phenomenon firsthand. “I actually don’t know a Black person who hasn’t either directly or indirectly experienced some form of bias within the medical system or at least some sort of unacceptable, scary interaction that that has had a negative outcome for them,” she shares with ESSENCE. “I’m so proud to lend my voice to this to this effort, and it’s even helped me understand how just how complex it really is.”

“Black women are not being given the compassionate quality health care that they deserve. And I’m really proud to be a part of the solution, not only by telling my own stories that deal with this issue, but also to bring other people’s stories to life,” says Welteroth. “Through this initiative, The Advil Pain Equity Project is about creating solutions.”

But, “there isn’t a quick fix,” adds Welteroth, saying “this is a deeply systemic issue. And if you have been trained in this system…anyone can fall victim to some of the conditioning that is deeply racist.”

“The system isn’t set up for compassionate care. It just isn’t. It’s set up to put the priority of profits over patients,” she shares.

But Welteroth is encouraged that Advil “is tackling it at the source. And the source is at the medical schools that these physicians are being trained in. They are launching a pilot program that is going to revolutionize the curriculum and address systemic bias and pain, inequity and give language to these very real phenomena in hopes that…they’re able to scale it across the country, [so] that we are going to raise a more compassionate, next generation of medical health care providers.”

It is imperative “to bring this research to the forefront of the medical community and to the public so that we know that we are not alone in our experiences, that this is real, and that’s really key because medical gaslighting is also very real,” says Welteroth, referencing “the power of storytelling and how it truly has the power to change hearts and minds. It also has the power to equip entire communities with tools and knowledge that we need to help save our lives.”

Welteroth concluded the conversation by encouraging people to go to their website, www.believemypain.com, for more resources.