Medical Non-Compliance: A Structural Issue
Sierra Erdman-Luntz
Email: sierra@u.northwestern.edu
BIO
Hello! My name is Sierra Erdman-Luntz. I am currently a Junior, majoring in sociology and double minoring in history and French. I am also pre-law and intend to become a civil rights attorney. I am passionate about helping my community and advocating for people’s rights.
Q&A
I wrote this essay for my Medical Sociology class where I read Mama Might Be Better Off Dead by
Laurie Kaye Abraham and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman.Both
case studies reveal structural barriers, in particular poverty and cultural barriers, that limited the
respective patients’ ability to be medically compliant. I argue, thus, that society’s current
conception of medical noncompliance as solely the patient’s fault is incomplete because it ignores
the doctors’ and medical institutions’ role.I argue that medical compliance is, thus, a breakdown in
the medical institution-doctor-patient relationship, and that the medical system must adapt to
these barriers that their patients face before they can reasonably expect compliance.
The prompt for the essay focused on compliance and what it can look like.
I chose to focus on the doctor’s and medical institution’s side of medical
noncompliance because the influence of both were prevalent in the two books
I read and because of my own experiences within medical institutions.
I intend to become a civil rights lawyer and hope to advocate for people’s
right for accessible healthcare in that role.
Law school!
