She was told she might have cancer: How medicine pathologizes Black patients' normal test results

A busy medical student, Vanessa Apea wasn’t her usual energetic self. So she dragged herself to the doctor to get checked and have her blood drawn. A week later, she received a call telling her to return to the clinic; it was urgent. When she arrived, the doctor asked if she had a family history of blood or genetic disorders. Was she having shortness of breath? Were her lymph nodes enlarged? 

“At this point, I could feel myself getting really anxious,” Apea recalled. She was told that she had neutropenia — low levels of one type of infection-fighting white blood cell — and that it could be a sign of leukemia. Just 21 at the time, she was frightened, and spent much of the next week crying. 

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