Sara Press// In March of 2020, a family friend contracted COVID-19. He was working as a heli-ski guide at a remote lodge in British Columbia when it happened. Dozens of tourists from across the world had congregated there because of their mutual love of the mountains. Within a two-week period, at least 50 people tested…
Author: Sara Press
Sara Press recently completed her PhD in English Literature and Science and Technology Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her research offers a rhetorical rethinking of settler-colonial constructions of health and illness in Canada and the U.S. to demonstrate how otherness is often pathologized in contradistinction to presumed norms of cis-heteropatriarchal white health. By interrogating specific instances of institutional racism and biases in medical practice and pedagogy, she illuminates material inequalities in North American society, which remain significant obstacles to healthcare. From 2018-2020, Sara was a Visiting Fellow in the History of Science department at Harvard University.
TikTok and the Politics of Self-Diagnosis
Sara Press// Last spring, one of my third-year English students told me that she was in the process of seeking an ADHD diagnosis. This in and of itself was not surprising, since ADHD is fairly common. What was surprising was that this student had discovered her potential diagnosis on TikTok. Apparently, she is not alone….
A Band-Aid on Systemic Racism
Sara Press// Millennials who came of age in the early 2000s will surely remember the hit single “Hot in Herre” by the St. Louis rapper Nelly. For young consumers of pop culture, Nelly was a familiar face at the start of the 21st century, famous for his catchy songs and his signature look: a white Band-Aid…
Confronting the Consequences of a Single Story
Sara Press// Every person pictured has consented to having their portraits shared publicly. In 2009, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a TED Talk on “The Danger of a Single Story.”[1] In her talk, Adichie advocates for the importance of storytelling, but cautions against homogenizing complex humans and situations into a single narrative. She explains, “The…
Grieving in a Pandemic
Sara Press // On a warm day in October, I found myself staring at fallen leaves in a forested burial ground in Toronto. My parents and I stood back from the constellation of mourners, all of whom had been asked to sign their names on a contact tracing form before entering the service. We surrounded…
Hierarchies of Care in Quarantine
Sara Press // In early June, the New York City Department of Health confirmed that the first dog in the United States had tested positive for Covid-19.[1] Few details were known about the dog beyond his location, his breed, and his prognosis—it was believed he would recover. However, on July 11th, the details of this…
The Intimacy of Storytelling in Isolation
Sara Press // In 1347, a plague descended upon Italy on the backs of rats dismounting ships at the Sicilian Port of Messina. The Bubonic Plague, better known as the “Black Death,” tore through Europe and the Middle East over the following years, leaving millions of civilians dead in its wake. In 1348, a group…
The Shifting Politics of Diagnosis: From Problem Patients to Niche Consumers
Sara Press // In 1851, the prominent American surgeon and psychologist Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright published an alarming report in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: a disease had become increasingly prevalent among the South’s Black population and was causing slaves to run away from their white masters.[1] Cartwright coined this disease “drapetomania.” While the…
The Empathy Exams Revisited
Sara Press // On Saturday, May 5th, 2018, I went in to the BC Children’s Hospital to see a doctor about a lump in my neck. It might seem strange that a twenty-seven-year-old was going to a Children’s Hospital. Perhaps even stranger that I was seen by fifteen medical residents that day, and had to…
From Norma and Normman to Kim and Caitlyn
Sara Press// In the summer of 1945, a very average couple, who would come to embody the ideals of American society, emerged into the public eye. Brought to life by Abram Belskie and Robert Latou Dickinson, the Cleveland Health Museum debuted the sculptures of Norma and Normman as “A Portrait of the American People.” Strong…