Reflection on Ellen Samuel's "In Answer to Your Question."

One of Ellen Samuels' poems that has continued to resonate with me is “In Answer to Your Question.” As I mentioned in class, this poem is very relatable to the situation I went through when getting diagnosed with my chronic illness. It was during the peak of my senior basketball season, and everyone from my parents to coaches, to trainers, to even my teammates' parents was asking if I had tried this or that. It was frustrating because I had tried so many different treatments for so many different illnesses or injuries. While yes, I appreciated their suggestions as I knew it was from a place of care, I had tried so many different things that it was apparent that I needed a more significant treatment, which turned out to be true.

This brings up another point that I wanted to discuss related to medical treatment, the wait times to see specialist doctors. I dealt with knee swellings and unbearable pain to the point that I couldn’t walk for almost 7 months, because it took me 4 months alone to get into a rheumatologist, on top of the 3 months it takes for the medicine to work. My experience reflects a broader issue in the healthcare system: limited access to specialists and long wait times for care. For serious or rapidly worsening conditions, these delays can mean prolonged pain, reduced quality of life, and potentially more severe long-term consequences. It raises the important question about how healthcare systems allocate resources and whether there are enough specialists to meet patient needs. 

I think it also brings up an interesting topic of teaching about speciality doctors from a young age, or even in high school and college-level bio and pre-health classes. I took multiple high school-level biology courses, and all that was pushed was the basic doctors: pediatricians, family doctors, surgeons, etc. I never even knew what a rheumatologist was till my mom suggested I see one. Trying to encourage people to go into these speciality care fields and spreading knowledge about these fields is so important for the health of the population, and I think is something that attention should really be brought to in the changing field of medicine.