White Doctors In Training Believe Some Disturbing Stuff About Black Patients

Discussion in 'Mental, Medical and Sexual Health' started by OckyDub, Apr 8, 2016.

  1. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
    Site Founder The 10000 Daps Club

    Joined:
    Aug 12, 2015
    Messages:
    6,691
    Daps Received:
    15,036
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    The planet of Memory Corpses
    Orientation:
    Homosexual
    Dating:
    Married
    [​IMG]
    When it comes to emergency care, you may have a tough time if you’re in pain and not a white man.

    Previous research has shown that black and Hispanic patients who reported severe pain in the the ER were 22 percent less likely to receive pain medication than white patients who presented with the same complaints. And women suffer similar disparities: A 2008 study found that women wait an average of 16 minutes longer to receive pain relief for acute abdominal pain in the ER than men do.

    Now a new study is shedding some light on this phenomenon. “We’ve been looking at racial bias and pain perception to try to understand why there are these large racial disparities in pain management,” study author Kelly Hoffman, a psychology PhD candidate at the University of Virginia, told The Huffington Post.

    The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March, surveyed 222 white medical students and residents about biological differences between blacks and whites. A few of the survey items were true (“Whites are less likely to have a stroke than blacks,” for example), but the majority of the items were false (“Whites have larger brains than blacks”).

    The results of the survey were distressing. Forty percent of first-year medical students and one in four residents answered that they thought black patients had thicker skin than white patients, and a full 50 percent of the respondents thought that at least one of the false facts was possibly, probably or definitely true.

    Why are doctors-in-training so misinformed about basic biological concepts when it comes to race? While we can’t know for sure Hoffman suggests that these entrenched misconceptions are simply a stronger force than medical education.

    “Previous data would suggest that these are notions that are just so pervasive throughout our society and are so entrenched in our history that they are [beliefs] that people hold,” she said.

    In other words, it’s not a few “bad apple” doctors and residents with racist tendencies — it’s sadly a more pervasive problem than that.

    Racial disparities plague the health care system
    This finding is particularly disheartening in light of rampant racial disparities that continue to plague the U.S. health care system. Blacks have worse health outcomes than whites for nearly every conceivable metric of health, including breast cancer mortality rates, HIV infection rates, and heart disease and stroke risk. Black Americans even get less sleep than white Americans. Black children are more likely to die in infancy, more likely to suffer from childhood obesity and more likely to have childhood asthma than their white counterparts. And, like their parents, if black children show up at the ER with appendicitis, which requires surgery, they’re 80 percent less likely to receive opioids — the most powerful pain medication — during their treatment and recovery.

    So what’s a black patient to do? A study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology in March found that black patients were 20 percent less likely to die or have major complications if they received treatment at a racially diverse hospital, as opposed to a hospital with less racial diversity.

    “Our underlying hypothesis is that hospitals and providers that treat more minority patients have higher levels of cultural competency,” study author Dr. Philip Okafor, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic, told Reuters.

    Being understood by your doctor is a key component of receiving good medical care. In addition to increasing the cultural competency of doctors, as Okafor mentions, increased diversity among doctors would help, too.

    “In an ideal world, the race of the patient or physician wouldn’t matter; we would all treat each other strictly as individuals,” Dr. Damon Tweedy, a psychiatrist at Duke University Medical, wrote in the New York Times last year. “But we’re quite a ways from reaching that exalted goal. For now, we have to attack the problem of racial health disparities from as many angles as possible. Black doctors are an important part of this mission.”
     
  2. NikR

    Bae Material The 1000 Daps Club

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 2016
    Messages:
    536
    Daps Received:
    1,195
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Orientation:
    Gay
    Dating:
    Single
    This confuses the hell outta me. It just does. Maybe because brown skin isn't... translucent...so it's....thicker??? I'm reaching. WTF.

    This is probably about right. I never realized how privileged I was to have West Indian doctor growing up until I was in med school and saw what my class looked like vs the population we served. Smh.
     
  3. questforknowledge

    Bae Material Squad Leader The 100 Daps Club

    Age:
    37
    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2015
    Messages:
    88
    Daps Received:
    297
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Jersey City NJ
    Orientation:
    Gay
    Dating:
    Single
    I read this article a few days back, as much as I should be surprised I really wasn't. But nonetheless, it frustrating reading stuff like this. Some white folks can be so damn ignorant. It's like your butt is in medical school, you are much smarter than that! Where they hell they teach you some ignorant crap like that, that's some BS man.
     
  4. GaTekno84

    GaTekno84 Squad Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2015
    Messages:
    37
    Daps Received:
    83
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Atlanta
    Dating:
    Married
    I had a bike accident and sprained my ankle last weekend. The pain is worse than when i broke a shoulder last year, and I've been barely able to walk all week. The ER doctor gave me an aircast and and suggested OTC ADVIL! Im allergic to advil, to which he said he didnt care. Im toughing it out, but cant help to wonder if i was white would i have been treated differently. The doctor was Indian if it matters.
     
    OckyDub dapped this.
  5. Tyroc

    Tyroc Deactivated Account

    Joined:
    Sep 5, 2015
    Messages:
    1,032
    Daps Received:
    2,161
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    Whenever I hear stories like this I wonder if it's because of the long held discriminatory belief that black people are alway trying to get over or if it's just a complete lack of what should be human empathy towards people who are viewed as less than and deemed not as worthy of fully helping.

    I've seen it even in the supposed most compassionate of fields, veterinarians.

    Hopefully enough people read this thread and pass it on, even if it's only left in the back of minds.
    At some point we will either ourselves or someone we care about encounter a situation requiring health care.
     
  6. ColumbusGuy

    The 100 Daps Club

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    2,421
    Daps Received:
    2,992
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Backwater, Ohio
    Orientation:
    Gay
    Dating:
    Not looking
    I tried to access the study itself but could not get past the abstract. I have to wonder how they actually put the question 'do blacks have thicker skin'? I think it may partly be that white people feel more entitled and will bitch and complain more and are seen as 'less tough' because of it.

    Did they mean actual thickness as in micromillimeters or something like that...or 'thicker skin' as in the person being not as sensitive or being able to take pain more? I want to see how they asked the question. If it was put strictly as a medical question regarding the actual physical thickness of the epermis/dermis etc...how they hell does any person off the street think that would be true?

    I wanted to see these questions and really see how many fools could possibly have thought that blacks could have smaller brains? If anyone answered even 'possibly' on that they should have been required to take some kind of training....or I don't know what get some kind of psychological evaluation for their own mental competency. smh.

    The only thing I could recommend is being demanding as hell when you are a patient and if you feel you are not being treated equally-you probably are not being treated equally and bitch about it- claim racism if you feel like that may be a possibility- most white people hate that and hate being accused of it. Fuck what they think about it if it gets the results you want then do it.

    Holy shit. Having been in and around Healthcare for years and having various kinds of training(including nursing) how could they just say they don't care? I would have raised holy hell and demanded to see their superior and filed a complaint if someone dared to say that to me? The last time I got some painkillers they were not strong enough and I went right back to the doctor(actually a dentist)and demanded stronger. And got stronger. Hell when my last colonoscopy was done I chewed them out for not giving me enough sedation(I was wide damn awake) and also let the Dr. have it for his inappropriate remarks during the thing.

    I mean to not care that you say you are allergic to something? I would have lost my shit! I would have demanded to see another doctor and the damn head of the hospital or whomever was the there top of the line at the time . This is really suspect treatment-not only the pain part but the allergy part.

    People have to learn to speak up to doctors-a large amount if not the majority are assholes/jerks/egomaniacs/etc who think they are Gods. If you suspect the doctor is off, trust your instincts and demand someone else. *this is a time when my hatred for authority figures actually comes in handy lol*
     
  7. BlackguyExecutive

    BlackguyExecutive Je suis diplomate
    Squad Leader Best Site Comments The 1000 Daps Club Supporter

    Age:
    38
    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2015
    Messages:
    1,035
    Daps Received:
    2,482
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    World Traveller
    Orientation:
    Gay
    Dating:
    Married
    I have mentioned here before, that several weeks ago my husband was involved in a traffic crash. While he received adequate care, we were asked probably 5 times about his insurance status. Now I work in government and receive probably the best insurance coverage that the government provides and yet, I think the doctors saw pass that we were gay and were more concerned that we were black and uninsured.

    These findings do NOT surprise me at all. In many ways we need to be encourage our sons and daughters to pursue the hard sciences so we can advance our own healthcare and provide for our communities.
     
    Tyroc and ColumbusGuy dapped this.
Loading...
Similar Threads - White Doctors Training Forum Date
Mehdi Hasan slams racist media coverage of Ukraine conflict: ‘They really mean white people’ Race, Religion, Science and Politics Feb 28, 2022
Black content creators make significantly less money than their white counterparts Race, Religion, Science and Politics Dec 7, 2021
White women's long-overlooked complicity in the brutality of slaveholding Race, Religion, Science and Politics Oct 28, 2021
White Christian Conservatives Be Like... Race, Religion, Science and Politics Oct 28, 2021
African-Americans Outpace Whites and Hispanics In Cryptocurrency Investments Career, Work, Finances and Education Oct 27, 2021

Share This Page

Loading...