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.