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Post by Andrew Milian on Nov 17, 2016 22:10:17 GMT -4
Discrimination is rampant across the medical field but it's more of an intrinsic problem that we have here in the US that extends to many professions, not only medicine. Sadly, many patients prefer and request white male physicians because they believe that they are "better". Being hispanic I've experienced this first hand because all my family members including my mother who works in the medical field say that they prefer white male physicians. It's a difficult thing to fix a prejudice that is deeply ingrained in our culture, however, with time and continued effort of medical providers to push for diversity we will one day see change. This is not an overnight fix but one that will take several years. Martin Luther once had a dream and I hope many of the aspiring minority physicians have such dreams.
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Post by Sherene Falconer on Nov 17, 2016 23:55:09 GMT -4
This article hit close to home, as I am also a black female medical student, who has been subjected to some of the racism that the author discussed. I, too have been referred to as the “colored girl” to which my attending promptly said “her name is Sherene”. His response made a difference. Sometimes all is takes is someone to speak up, but sadly racism is imbedded in our culture and is accepted. Those who speak up for themselves are often viewed as “aggressive” and are often times asked, “Why are black people always angry?”, consequently most of us choose to ignore it as much as we can. I can only hope that as there are more discussions about racism, people will become more conscious of how we speak to and treat each other.
Sherene Falconer (MS3)
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Jenny Jacob Thomas (MS3)
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Post by Jenny Jacob Thomas (MS3) on Nov 18, 2016 0:03:29 GMT -4
This article addresses a topic that isn't usually highlighted or brought up. The reason why things like racial bias isn't brought up is because of the back lash of what happens after you stand up for this injustice. Students worry about their grades and evaluations and prioritize them above standing up for something they see that is unfair. And why should they do otherwise? They are constantly surrounded by physicians who see something wrong happening in front of them and even they remain silent. So why should a student say something and jeopardize their grade? The answer is simple; someone should speak up. There is very little power in the hands of a medical school student. But there is great power in their supervisors. If someone in authority were to speak up against racial bias, imagine how the effect of that would spread! It all starts with one person standing up for what is right. It isn't a task that can happen overnight, but the first step should be taken soon.
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Post by Vj-Amit Sieuraj on Nov 18, 2016 1:39:52 GMT -4
I have been fortunate enough to not experience any forms of racism throughout my time as a medical student here in the USA. I personally believe that the issue is blown out of proportion. I don't know that I'd expect my attending to stand up for me if a patient were to refer to me as 'the colored guy'. Truly, it would not even ruffle my feathers merely because as a medical student, I do embrace the fact that I need to be very understanding and open-minded. A patient may not necessarily know how to refer to a student [if the student was indeed 'colored'] and that does not mean that the pt is trying to be offensive or racist.
Vj-Amit Sieuraj MS4
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Post by Morgan Nichols on Nov 18, 2016 12:20:49 GMT -4
There is definitely still a divide in the world, and it's not limited to medicine. About a year ago I was in a relationship with a Puerto Rican who was obviously latino, but he was also black. It was very interesting when I went to Puerto Rico as there is a understanding of the islands past that resulted in every Puerto rican as being "a little bit of this, a little bit of that." The original background of the island was very diverse and very divided and over generations has blended together to the point that the entire island is one culture. The culture in Puerto Rico is far more tolerant as far as race is concerned; they just don't see color. A lot of puerto ricans are "white" with light eyes, and others are "black" with dark eyes, yet if you were to ask the average American of their descent they will say "Irish/German/Nigerian/South African/Egyptian," etc. If you ask the Puerto ricans, they simply say they are Puerto rican and will look at you like you asked them the craziest question. I feel like there is so much emphasis on where we are from, that we forget to focus on where we are and try to work towards a mutual understanding and respect. There isn't enough empathizing for one another's predicament and I think that contributes to such a divide. People tend to be selfish and focus on our own turmoil, but if we could spend even a few minutes thinking from another person's view point, on their cultural aspects, on challenges they face over our own, i can't help but feel over time, the divide wouldn't be so great. I cannot see it ever going away completely, but i hope we as a nation can learn to become more compassionate in backgrounds that differ than our own.
As far as medicine goes, there needs to be a big fix. Those in positions of power should speak up to defend their patients or their own subordinates from prejudice.There also should be a way for subordinates to speak their mind on such issues without worrying about detrimental effects to their grade. I know this last suggestion tends to fall on deaf ears in the older medical populace, who went through the same prejudice in their day, but was met with far less tolerance. There needs to be a way to bridge that divide as well, that just because it wasn't fixed for you generation, doesn't make it right to allow it to continue.
MN MS3
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Post by Nnenia Francis on Nov 18, 2016 12:46:05 GMT -4
Racial injustices and bias are still unfortunately prevalent in society today. It’s an issue in medicine that is not discussed or treated as even existing throughout the years of medical school. I am surprised about hearing of the instances that the author laid out in her piece, but I believe the first step in accountability is allowing a space to voice bias and the effect that this can have. The author was effectively penalized for voicing her displeasure with a setting, and that proved to silence her going forward. This latter serves to perpetuate the bias going forward. Even if the patients faced no repercussions, as the author said a stepping aside afterwards to bring light to the racial tension is imperative to shaping and changing of the attitudes in the field of medicine. Hopefully, we can all be more aware of these situations going forward because awareness is the first step towards change.
Nnenia Francis MS3
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Post by Joe Debrah on Nov 18, 2016 13:31:13 GMT -4
Whereas many physicians see race as too delicate an issue to talk about, others say its just an inappropriate topic to discuss in the clinics and hospitals. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the problem of racism in healthcare is more prominent than most of us will admit. The question I usually ask is; if it is too delicate to talk about then how do we move forward as a community. As stated in this article , it is unfortunate that many attendings turn a deaf ear to racist comments when its directed to their students, but if it's acceptable for patients to be racist against students, what do we expect will happen when these students become attendings? I believe our silence as physicians go a long way to propagate racism at various levels in the healthcare system, and the community as a whole. If we do not talk about or address delicate, or uncomfortable issues such as race, we are doing ourselves a disservice as physicians. This is because, irrespective of where we practice medicine, or the specialty we choose, we are bound to care for, treat or manage someone who will not act, speak, or look like us or even believe the things that we believe, and in such moments, our character will speaks louder than any medication we can ever prescribe.
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Post by Chetan Singh on Nov 18, 2016 13:57:49 GMT -4
Jennifer raises some interesting scenarios that I think many of us have encountered during our rotations. I do think she is a bit overly sensitive to what she views as racism though. Her story about the family with the confederate flag t-shirts has no substance, in fact she is judging them for how they are dressed. She even goes as far as to say, “Again, the attending physician did not address the racially charged awkwardness of the encounter.” What racially charged awkwardness? She never claims that they said anything to her and as far as I can tell she was allowed to do an examination that we are not always allowed to do. I just don’t like to see things blown out of proportion. Perhaps it is more important to not be so swayed by what patients say to us and to treat them without prejudice even if they have prejudice against us.
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Post by Varun Kaushal on Nov 18, 2016 14:19:26 GMT -4
Though this article talks about prejudice and hoops people of color have to jump through, I think this article brings up another point not discussed enough is how much voice does a medical student have. She states, I didn’t want to jeopardize my grades and evaluations by calling attention to intolerance, ” With students constantly worried about looking good in front of the doctor that will be evaluating them, I can understand the worry of defending yourself and how it is easier to stay quite. I do believe it is important to shine light on colleagues and students being intolerant. If a patient is saying racial slurs I think it is okay to defend yourself as long as you don’t treat them poorly. Ultimately the job is to treat patients with out judgment.
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Post by Ely Andrade on Nov 19, 2016 0:42:56 GMT -4
If we turn on the news any day, there are current events that are happening that have discrimination at the core of them. The medical field is unfortunately no different. You would think that a group of people in such a humane career would all be more racially blind. It blows my mind that we are still having this conversation in 2016. I feel for Jennifer that she did not have anyone to stand up for her. I believe her approach to be timid/silent to the patient was appropriate in large because she was the student. It should have been the attending physician's role to respectfully acknowledge the situation to both her and the patient. If we create a racially blind culture, and have zero tolerance for racism in our hospitals, & clinics eventually our patients will get the point that language that expresses any form of racism is not allowed. We must set these boundaries. If we join together to do this it will impact the way patients act in front of us. But if we become compliant to such language, then we are indirectly supporting racism.
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Post by Opeyemi Owa on Nov 19, 2016 8:51:29 GMT -4
With the weight of the work we do as physicians, I can almost come to understand how thing like this can happen and be overlooked, there just seems to always be "more important" things pulling for our attention. This article spoke to me on the level of physician self care, having learnt to sacrifice so much of ourselves, maybe this is seen as just another thing that you 'get over', or maybe its just having so much on your own plate, you don't see the point in taking up the cross for an issue that doesn't directly affect you. At the end of the day we are all humans and these things slowly chip away at us, and can end up becoming a monster that starts to rear its head unexpectedly either during patient encounters or peer interactions. Its crucial that issues of racism and sexism be handled head on and with compassion, we should be our brother's keepers.
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Post by Roy E Villafane on Nov 20, 2016 11:33:52 GMT -4
Last week as I was interviewing one patient in the clinic she pointed how she stopped going to her therapist just because he had an accent. The first Thing that came to my mind was "I have an accent" so it was very awkward and I guess it show up in my face because the patient stopped for a while looked at me and was frozen. Then she told me don't worry you have an accent but I can understand you so is ok. Before that comment the conversation between us was going well, we were having a good conversation I was making sure I had all the information necessary for the doctor. But after her comment I was in a weird position to continue the interview or just act weird as she did for the rest of the conversation. To this day that was my first "racist" encounter in a clinical setting. But at that point I stopped and asked the patient if she wanted another student to interview her to which she said no. I think that in those situations if possible we can act as intelligent and successful people that we are and don't get to the patients level and offer them another option or try to do our best in taking care of the,
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Post by Tarnjit Khakh on Nov 20, 2016 15:49:14 GMT -4
I can find myself gain a lot of similarity with this young woman. I would characterize myself as a shy, timid person who loves all things related to medicine. I am in this field because I have the passion to become a doctor and I have always stood firm in pursuing that goal. Just like Jennifer, I have found myself in situations in which I were to not say something to a higher authority figure to ensure my proper education and grading evaluation. I honestly do not feel that this a bad a attribute in retrospect. I however do feel that in my own journey from my transition into medical school has been profound and feel that I have improved in speaking up. I will admit that in the society that we live in, it has shaped young mind including myself to think of such negative aspects of a person based on colour. I can fully admit that this absolutely wrong. So what do I do? How do I make it a better world, a better environment in the medicine field? For others and myself. I have found myself to be so much more open minded..why? Because of the people I have managed to meet and get to know. Get to know their experiences and hardships. I would love to say that there is a complete resolution for this problem, the racism and everything that is derived from the basis of hate or dislike whether it be based on colour, sex, religion, or sexual orientation, but truth is, it is an ever evolving processs that needs to be worked at the micro level. Jennifer states in the article how because she did not want her grades to be affected, she remained silent. The authority levels of medicine needs to improve their own vision of how they would like to treat their patients and yes it might be true that we can not shape every mind to have the vision to not be prejudice or racist, we can at-least start from our generation. I strongly believe that my role as a medical student is important in this discussion of racism. I want to atleast try to help open minds of other colleges yes and coworkers that i future meet. I want to make sure I do my part as I become a physician. If I were to ever have student of my own, I would want to ensure the concept of tolerance. One might have their own beliefs, and this is their right. But we should be more open minded. We should have compassion and tolerance regardless of our own opinions and issues. We need to be resilient and try to work within our own radius. The power of one can effect another and it can make a domino effect. I feel that is the best we can do, especially for our generation, especially if we ( including myself ) can't speak out in fear of failure or negative effect of our future careers.
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Post by Samantha Ehrlich on Nov 20, 2016 16:23:21 GMT -4
This article sheds light on how racism continues to plague the medical profession. It demonstrates how pervasive racism still is, physicians mocking or trivializing patients and patients perpetuating racism against doctors. I believe that physicians who are in a more senior position must stand up for their students when a racist or sexist comment is made. Students should not have to be in an impossible situation of feeling completely victimized by racism but unable to say anything or deal with the issue because of fear of getting a lower grade. As mentioned in the article, there are cultural competency courses and training regarding how to best speak and interact with individuals from backgrounds that vary from our own in medical school. These classes must be taken as seriously as any one of the core classes. These can help shape young physicians to be inclusive, compassionate, and thoughtful regarding their interactions with patients, colleagues, and future students they will one day help mentor. I believe we must give cultural awareness classes greater importance and seriousness in the medical school curriculum. There must also be adequate time spent on how to approach uncomfortable racist and sexist situations as a young doctor in training.
Samantha Ehrlich (MS3)
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Post by Anisha Patel on Nov 20, 2016 23:21:10 GMT -4
I totally agree with Jennifer Adaeze. Directly or indirectly, I personally has faced racism while meeting different preceptors and people while in medical school. Moreover, along with students facing racism in the healthcare, there are patients who suffer from it as well. I believe that racial discrimination is a utter violation of the rights of a patient who regardless of their racial, geographic, political or economic status has the right to access healthcare for individual wellbeing. Unfortunately, repetitive practice of this habit by healthcare providers causes health disparities in the society, pointing to a problem especially on the care and attention given to patients seeking medical attention on preventive curative and management of terminal ailments. These issues, sadly, can also cause psychological damage on the victims that they have no power to change the situation.
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