Doctor: Trained in the Healing Arts and Licensed to Practice

Thank you dictionary.com for providing me with the truest, and simpliest, definition of what exactly a doctor is. A person who is "trained in the healing arts" and holds a license to practice. Brilliant. No where in the definiton do I, or did I, see anything about a doctor being of a certain color of skin or of a specific gender. Bingo!

African Americans who get their medical degrees and become doctors have it pretty rough. According to an article titled, "Confronting the Racial Barriers Between Doctors and Patients" from the New York Times, an African American doctor comments on how many patients think he is the wheelchair boy; not a man holding a medical degree who performs medical procedures just as well as any other doctor. Many people do hold biases against African American doctors and sometimes refuse treatment because the patient does not believe he or she has the knowledge of a doctor who is of the same race. This belief goes back to the thought that African Americans are all of lower SES and lack education. Sure, there are African Americans who fall into these categories, but there are also many who have the same status and education level as a white American, maybe even more!

A lot of the research on racial factors in hospital settings has been focused primarily on patients and the treatments they receive. It's been shown that African Americans go through medical procedures that are very undesireable compared to white Americans. Another finding has shown that many minorities do not get the option of surgery, like white Americans do, when it comes to treatment for some forms of cancer. Ridiculous yes, but it is not surprising since doctors do hold biases when treating different races. A lot of doctors do in fact perform the same procedures on all patients with the same ailments, but this is not always a good way of going about reducing the health disparities in treatment among races. There are indeed variations in genes between different races and one treatment may be great for one race, but not for another. To help with this issue doctors need to take more time in getting to know their patients and taking their medical history into strong consideration. At a greater level, medical schools should take this in their hands and educate future doctors on the health differences in all ethnic groups. An emphasis on getting to know their patients well before going through with any treatment or medical procedure should also be addressed in med school.

Dr. Saha, a researcher on such issues, believes that the first step all doctors must take in reducing racism in healthcare is to know how one's own stereotypes and experiences affect the way they view other groups other than their own. Pauline Chen, the author of this article and a doctor herself, took Saha's advice and tried to acknowledge her biases. She stated that when she has a patient of a different race it is hard to connect with them since there are not many shared experiences between herself and them. To counteract this fact, Chen says she unconsciously uses past experiences to try and connect with her patients of other ethnicities. Once again this issue should be taken into consideration way before a medical degree is issued.

This issue of racism in healthcare settings will not dissipate over night, but if the issue is addressed before doctors are even considered doctors, maybe the levels of racism will dissipate over a few nights. Okay, maybe a few years.

You Drive a BMW: Of Course You Have Health Insurance!

In an article from the New York Times titled, "Caught in the Middle, Without Health Insurance", it is strikingly apparent that the number of health insured citizens of the U S of A is dropping incredibly. No longer is it just the poorest of poor populations suffering; it is also the business men and women whom sport around in their pricey vehicles.

Open Door Family Medical Centers (found in parts of New York) were once dealing with poor people in high need of medical assistance. Now, as I stated above, they are filled to the brim with yes, the poor, but also middle class workers along with students just out of college, who are having a terrible time finding a job in the economy of today. According to the article, 7 percent of the US is out of work and 47 million are unable to afford any sort of health insurance. What scary, ginormous, eye opening statistics those are! That means roughly 7 out of 100 people are jobless, which makes me wonder; are children accounted for in those stats, or is just people of working age? I am going to assume it is based off of the 18+ population. After reading those numbers it makes me even more terrified to graduate from college. I have another year left in my undergraduate career, but I am not too optimistic that the economy will bounce back that quickly.

The middle class are getting hit harder and harder as our economy continues to fade. These people do not make enough money to shell out thousands of dollars for private health insurance, but make too much for Medicaid to be an option. The jobs they hold are having a hard time insuring them, so what other option do they have? One man mentioned in the article had to choose between his hypertension meds and his pills for Diabetes. He could not afford both. Truly saddening.

Another reason more and more people are using such places like Open Door is due to the lack of primary care physicians. Nowadays, medical students are going into a specialty knowing they will make more money pursuing that road. Along with this, is the fact that many primary care doctors are not seeing new patients, or their old patients that have had their health insurance dropped. As one woman said, the doctor would not see her unless she had the money in her hand the day of the appointment.

I knew the economy was horrible. I knew health insurance was a pain in the butt to try and get these days, but I had no idea just HOW bad it has gotten. The fact that people cannot afford all of their medications is troubling. The fact that many Lexus owners are no longer able to afford health insurance is awful. The fact that our nation is drowning in the deep end when it comes to our nation's health, and health coverage, is down right sickening.