ABSTRACT
We end the subsection with a poem by Bettina Judd (Reading 46). In this opening poem of her book entitled, Patient, Judd recounts the medical ordeal that she expe rienced in 2006, during which her left ovary was removed. Reflecting on her own gynecological surgery, Judd endeavors to make sense of her individual story and its connection to the haunted history of Black women, enslaved or otherwise marginal ized, whose bodies were used for the advancement of American gynecology. Raw pain reverberates in this poem, which references the “bloodline” of the medical establish ment treating her and she questions, “Why am I patient?” “Why am I patient?” is also a research question that introduces Judd as a researcher and as a patient whose own story opens up a way to recognize the legacies of enslaved Black women in the lives of present day patients. Haunted by ghosts of the past whose pain and bodily ordeal foreshadow her own, Judd was determined not only to recover from her “ordeal with medicine,” but also to “learn why ghosts come to me.”
