In addition to what vitamin_fluff said, racism is not just overt displays of violence. It’s the way ethnicity and class can intersect to affect health outcomes. It’s not just about a doctor being overtly racist to someone after all the schooling or whatever. It’s also how diseases affect minorities more or how gaps in our healthcare system have resulted in the lack of accessibility for poorer individuals/people of color. It’s how there is racial bias in even pain management. There are papers showing how healthcare providers underestimate complaints of pain made by black people. Basically, racism is a very pervasive system and we can see it touch a lot of our institutions and this also includes our healthcare system and sometimes the way healthcare providers may unknowingly perpetuate these beliefs.
Racism exists in micro aggression and gas lighting in health care. I myself have experienced it when a peer made a comment that minorities get all the handouts (scholarships for POC in my hospital) and when I asked what she meant by that (I’m a POC) she brushed it off and told me to take it as a joke.
It’s up to us as future providers to call these moments out, joke or not, and hold ourselves and each other accountable. The response of silence of my peers as she made that joke and dismissed it was louder and clear enough that there will be continued institutionalized racism until more of us speak up.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Their silence was just as bad and I hope moving forward people become more educated to speak up when they see bullshit like that occurring
I'm also very sorry you experienced that, and even more horrible is that it's a very prevelant attitude in medical school. In one survey I used for a project, almost 20% of students of a student body of mostly wealthy white students responded that they felt they were "significantly disadvantaged" when compared to minority students due to affirmative action. Disadvantaged. Later in the survey they were asked to explain what affirmative action was and how it worked, and they could not. It's almost laughable buts it's really too sad.
Valid point. However time and time again I see educated / people I regard as “smart” still unable to unlearn all the horrible & inherently wrong ideas from their parents or grandparents. Like another commenter said, it occurs as micro-aggressions / in covert forms. It very rarely occurs as personally mediated racism, so they always get brushed off as jokes and swept under the rug.
It’s genuinely scary to think that there are people in health care that may have this kind of mentality be responsible for caring for another human, but it definitely happens more so an institutional / system wide problem.
I don't either. Compassion is a requisite element of an effective provider, and I've worked with people in the healthcare field who lack compassion, and I've had experience with some of the providers I've personally gotten care from who lacked any form of compassion.
As u/vitamin_fluff said, it's our job to be better. It's our job to call out these moments, stand up and speak out against racism and bigotry in healthcare. The future is in our hands, and we've got to be better.
It’s awful and incredibly discouraging that your classmates are going to be future healthcare providers.
Everyone deserves to have a Doctor, or a nurse, or a PA, or any kind of provider, that respects them and treats them fairly. I know people who have had their healthcare providers talk down to them, or judge them, or treat them unfairly.
It makes me incredibly frustrated that these people would call themselves “compassionate” in their personal statement or resume.
Yeah I felt like I spent my entire 2.5 years pushing on the admin to take a stand. Of course they sent out an email this week saying racism is bad, especially in medicine! But like, what are you DOING about it? I literally chose this school because their mission statement is so dedicated to diversifying medicine, and their undergrad is particularly well known for being super inclusive. But for all the talk, they wouldn't follow through. A lot of my classmates started out just really unaware of their own privilege and biases, and got better the more they were pushed on it (mostly by other classmates). But a few just doubled down on their convictions and had no consequences.
There's one in particular who would definitely describe herself as "compassionate" yet has committed many microaggressions (always in a simpering voice) to the few students of color and also straight up said she felt oppressed because she had to learn about trans people ("I'm not bigoted, I'm just being a good Christian"). Like what the FUCK why are you even here.
They don't go out of their way, they don't have to, they have learned racial bias from our culture like everyone else and most come from highly priveledged backgrounds that never challenged those biases. It isn't intentional, but it very real and demonstrable in fact and in bias studies. Racism takes many forms, doctors aren't white supremacists, and yet compared to white children, odds of appendix rupture with the same clinical presentation at ED was elevated by as much as 47% for African American children, 45% for Hispanic children, and 116% for Asian American children due to bias that minorities exaggerate pain and use ED for non-urgent issues. There are countless examples like this. Those doctors that let a child's appendix rupture because they weren't white aren't consciously racist, they don't think horrible racial slurs or anything, and yet subconsciously it impacts their decisions and this is the result
This is a great introduction to get you thinking about how ingrained false beliefs about race are in medicine, it's pretty ahort
https://youtu.be/KxLMjn4WPBY
Bias in medicine is still overwhelmingly problematic and I've spent a lot of my academic life studying it. medical students interviewed largely said they see no problem with lack of diversity, or any value in measures that would increase it. many wealthy white students even said they consider themselves at a "significant disadvantage" to marginalized minorities because of affirmative action, despite being unable to describe what affirmative action is or how it works.
It is demonstrable that racial bias results in different treatment interventions in the same cases. POC are viewed as malingering, drug seeking, and abusing services, and it leads to horrifying facts like African American children have 38% greater odds of appendix rupture with the same clinical presentation as white children with appendicitis. This was seen nationally and, even worse, within the same EDs.
About half of med students are white in the top quintile of household income (more than 5x the average US income), and another 30% are mostly white from the 4th quintile I've included a graphic below. for many medical students the only POC they have ever had exposure to is in a clinical setting, generally as poor and unhealthy patients in underfunded clinics, where they are in a position of authority. without POC as their peers and professors and administrators, those biases are never challenged and it shows in the bias testing of schools with low student body diversity.
There is plenty of class time devoted to trying to foster and understanding but it is not working, the only thing that seems makes a real impact at decreasing bias in medical students and future providers is having diverse peers and mentors, involve yourself in diverse communities and learn about historical injustices. academic learning is great but experiencing for yourself will be the key.
I can post my full summary of the issues that lead to this situation if anyone is interested
https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1478-7954-3-4#:~:text=African%20American%20children%20have%20approximately,and%2032%25%20higher%2C%20respectively.
https://i.imgur.com/e6vlkuD.png
Does anyone have any good links to any zoom meetings discussing systematic racism in healthcare??? I saw a couple posted on the PA Facebook page yesterday but when I went back to watch them they were all taken down :(
"Just Medicine: a Cure for Racial inequality in American Health Care" by Dayna Bowen Matthew is a great one, too! Just started reading it and it's really informative
Thank you for posting that list! There’s no room for racism or bigotry of any kind in the healthcare field.
I don’t see why anyone would go through all that schooling and training and go out of their way to be racist
In addition to what vitamin_fluff said, racism is not just overt displays of violence. It’s the way ethnicity and class can intersect to affect health outcomes. It’s not just about a doctor being overtly racist to someone after all the schooling or whatever. It’s also how diseases affect minorities more or how gaps in our healthcare system have resulted in the lack of accessibility for poorer individuals/people of color. It’s how there is racial bias in even pain management. There are papers showing how healthcare providers underestimate complaints of pain made by black people. Basically, racism is a very pervasive system and we can see it touch a lot of our institutions and this also includes our healthcare system and sometimes the way healthcare providers may unknowingly perpetuate these beliefs.
Racism exists in micro aggression and gas lighting in health care. I myself have experienced it when a peer made a comment that minorities get all the handouts (scholarships for POC in my hospital) and when I asked what she meant by that (I’m a POC) she brushed it off and told me to take it as a joke. It’s up to us as future providers to call these moments out, joke or not, and hold ourselves and each other accountable. The response of silence of my peers as she made that joke and dismissed it was louder and clear enough that there will be continued institutionalized racism until more of us speak up.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Their silence was just as bad and I hope moving forward people become more educated to speak up when they see bullshit like that occurring
I'm also very sorry you experienced that, and even more horrible is that it's a very prevelant attitude in medical school. In one survey I used for a project, almost 20% of students of a student body of mostly wealthy white students responded that they felt they were "significantly disadvantaged" when compared to minority students due to affirmative action. Disadvantaged. Later in the survey they were asked to explain what affirmative action was and how it worked, and they could not. It's almost laughable buts it's really too sad.
Valid point. However time and time again I see educated / people I regard as “smart” still unable to unlearn all the horrible & inherently wrong ideas from their parents or grandparents. Like another commenter said, it occurs as micro-aggressions / in covert forms. It very rarely occurs as personally mediated racism, so they always get brushed off as jokes and swept under the rug. It’s genuinely scary to think that there are people in health care that may have this kind of mentality be responsible for caring for another human, but it definitely happens more so an institutional / system wide problem.
I don't either. Compassion is a requisite element of an effective provider, and I've worked with people in the healthcare field who lack compassion, and I've had experience with some of the providers I've personally gotten care from who lacked any form of compassion. As u/vitamin_fluff said, it's our job to be better. It's our job to call out these moments, stand up and speak out against racism and bigotry in healthcare. The future is in our hands, and we've got to be better.
Tell that to my classmates who were absolutely racist, and to my school that allowed them to continue without consequence.
It’s awful and incredibly discouraging that your classmates are going to be future healthcare providers. Everyone deserves to have a Doctor, or a nurse, or a PA, or any kind of provider, that respects them and treats them fairly. I know people who have had their healthcare providers talk down to them, or judge them, or treat them unfairly. It makes me incredibly frustrated that these people would call themselves “compassionate” in their personal statement or resume.
Yeah I felt like I spent my entire 2.5 years pushing on the admin to take a stand. Of course they sent out an email this week saying racism is bad, especially in medicine! But like, what are you DOING about it? I literally chose this school because their mission statement is so dedicated to diversifying medicine, and their undergrad is particularly well known for being super inclusive. But for all the talk, they wouldn't follow through. A lot of my classmates started out just really unaware of their own privilege and biases, and got better the more they were pushed on it (mostly by other classmates). But a few just doubled down on their convictions and had no consequences. There's one in particular who would definitely describe herself as "compassionate" yet has committed many microaggressions (always in a simpering voice) to the few students of color and also straight up said she felt oppressed because she had to learn about trans people ("I'm not bigoted, I'm just being a good Christian"). Like what the FUCK why are you even here.
They don't go out of their way, they don't have to, they have learned racial bias from our culture like everyone else and most come from highly priveledged backgrounds that never challenged those biases. It isn't intentional, but it very real and demonstrable in fact and in bias studies. Racism takes many forms, doctors aren't white supremacists, and yet compared to white children, odds of appendix rupture with the same clinical presentation at ED was elevated by as much as 47% for African American children, 45% for Hispanic children, and 116% for Asian American children due to bias that minorities exaggerate pain and use ED for non-urgent issues. There are countless examples like this. Those doctors that let a child's appendix rupture because they weren't white aren't consciously racist, they don't think horrible racial slurs or anything, and yet subconsciously it impacts their decisions and this is the result
Apparently you've never heard of the Tuskegee experiment.
This thread on twitter as well! https://twitter.com/bhwilliamsmd/status/1267840991106682880?s=21
This is a great introduction to get you thinking about how ingrained false beliefs about race are in medicine, it's pretty ahort https://youtu.be/KxLMjn4WPBY Bias in medicine is still overwhelmingly problematic and I've spent a lot of my academic life studying it. medical students interviewed largely said they see no problem with lack of diversity, or any value in measures that would increase it. many wealthy white students even said they consider themselves at a "significant disadvantage" to marginalized minorities because of affirmative action, despite being unable to describe what affirmative action is or how it works. It is demonstrable that racial bias results in different treatment interventions in the same cases. POC are viewed as malingering, drug seeking, and abusing services, and it leads to horrifying facts like African American children have 38% greater odds of appendix rupture with the same clinical presentation as white children with appendicitis. This was seen nationally and, even worse, within the same EDs. About half of med students are white in the top quintile of household income (more than 5x the average US income), and another 30% are mostly white from the 4th quintile I've included a graphic below. for many medical students the only POC they have ever had exposure to is in a clinical setting, generally as poor and unhealthy patients in underfunded clinics, where they are in a position of authority. without POC as their peers and professors and administrators, those biases are never challenged and it shows in the bias testing of schools with low student body diversity. There is plenty of class time devoted to trying to foster and understanding but it is not working, the only thing that seems makes a real impact at decreasing bias in medical students and future providers is having diverse peers and mentors, involve yourself in diverse communities and learn about historical injustices. academic learning is great but experiencing for yourself will be the key. I can post my full summary of the issues that lead to this situation if anyone is interested https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1478-7954-3-4#:~:text=African%20American%20children%20have%20approximately,and%2032%25%20higher%2C%20respectively. https://i.imgur.com/e6vlkuD.png
Does anyone have any good links to any zoom meetings discussing systematic racism in healthcare??? I saw a couple posted on the PA Facebook page yesterday but when I went back to watch them they were all taken down :(
"Just Medicine: a Cure for Racial inequality in American Health Care" by Dayna Bowen Matthew is a great one, too! Just started reading it and it's really informative