A trip to the doctor’s office comes with a bit of preparation for most, maybe even an internal pep talk to prepare for being told to get more exercise or calm a simmering fear of needles.
But dressing well in hopes of warding off unfair treatment – or even bracing for being insulted?
A newly released poll by KFF, a health policy research group, found many patients of color — including 3 in 5 Black respondents — take such steps at least some of the time when seeing a doctor.
The poll found that 55% of Black respondents said they feel like they must be very careful about their appearance to be treated fairly at medical visits. That’s similar to the rate for Hispanic and Alaska Native patients – and nearly double the rate for white patients.
Something interesting I’ve noticed about doctors: they don’t even like each other from what I’ve seen. And many of them don’t go to see a doctor very often themselves. One of my good friends is married to a doctor, and they tell me about some of this stuff. And doctors all talk shit about their patients, of course. And they are incredibly difficult to manage / supervise. They see themselves as authority figures and don’t respond well to higher authority.
I think they are also super stressed out and overworked. There aren’t nearly enough of them for the global population of patients. And the evil health insurance companies hover over everything like the fucking Borg.
Of course none of this excuses racism.
One of my DILs is a woman of color. She was in so much pain but got turned away from two emergency rooms because they labeled her as seeking opioids. Luckily we were able to drive her to a hospital in a nearby town that took her seriously. She had an ovarian torsion. It was quite serious and getting worse by the minute. Thank God for the ER doc at that hospital, who happened to be a woman of color herself.
Off the main topic, but those insurance companies, fuck those people. My doctor is having so much trouble getting a pre-authorization for a medication that I truly need. We’ve been going in circles for weeks. I’m allergic to one of the ingredients in the cheaper meds and they still want me to rule those out first. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like it when my throat swells shut.
Every time my Drs office calls them, it’s like we are starting over from scratch.
I honestly don’t know how those people sleep at night.
Over 20 years ago, I worked for a health insurance company (not proud of it). I remember someone in the claims department telling me how they often rejected claims over a certain dollar amount without even looking at them, just to force the patient into re-submitting the claim. It was one reason I decided to quit and find another job. It’s gotten even worse since then. Private insurance is a complete scam in the USA.
Shit like this is why black ppl are less likely to get vaccinated. Why would you listen to someone who doesn’t take you seriously regarding your own health?
The Tuskegee experiment did the most damage imo. So absolutely fucked up…
Black Americans were promised free healthcare under the guise of an experiment intending to study the late stages of syphilis (which is fatal). The men were told they were being treated for “bad blood” (a common term at the time), but they were really just provided placebos while the effects of the disease were secretly recorded.
In order to track the disease’s full progression, researchers provided no effective care as the men died, went blind or insane or experienced other severe health problems due to their untreated syphilis.
A man named Peter Buxton discovered the experiment and raised concerns over it’s ethical violations, but the review board decided to continue the experiment until all participants had perished and autopsies could be preformed. Buxton was having none of it, and leaked it to the press.
By that time, 28 participants had perished from syphilis, 100 more had passed away from related complications, at least 40 spouses had been diagnosed with it and the disease had been passed to 19 children at birth.
In 1973, Congress held hearings on the Tuskegee experiments, and the following year the study’s surviving participants, along with the heirs of those who died, received a $10 million out-of-court settlement. Additionally, new guidelines were issued to protect human subjects in U.S. government-funded research projects.
This is still a very potent source of lingering distrust of the healthcare industry among Black Americans.
Yes, my husband has dark skin, and I’m pasty white, and we’ve noticed this. He used to have frequent seizures, and every trip to the ER involved being grilled repeatedly about “what drugs was he on?” And he’s noticed that doctors are much less likely to prescribe things like painkillers to him than they are to me.
And the worst part? I’m sure none of these healthcare workers think they’re being racist at all. It’s all played out at a subconscious level. Racism is so baked into society that most people who are being racist don’t even realize they’re being racist. It’s a hard problem to tackle because when you try to raise the conversation, people become defensive and think you’re saying they’re bad people.
I mean, I’m not saying this from three feet above the ground – I’m sure I could use some self-reflection, too.
I’m sure I could use some self-reflection, too.
We all can. But that’s the difference between us 'cause many don’t care to look.
It’s more white ppl don’t have to. Societal racism is either a non issue or directly opposes the benefits they get. It’s tiring even reading about all this shit because it’s already common knowledge. The problem is we do fuck all to change it.
It’s like those few months after George Floyd the US collectively wanted to end racism and police brutality and all ppl did to “help” is just watch some Netflix documentaries and bought some stuff with BLM stamped on it to
I’m sure none of these healthcare workers think they’re being racist at all. It’s all played out at a subconscious level. Racism is so baked into society that most people who are being racist don’t even realize they’re being racist.
You are so 100% correct. This is called implicit racism, and it permeates our society to a systemic level. Healthcare can be a good example, and the U.S. criminal justice system is the best example imo.
One thing that really drives home the systemic implicit racism in this country are studies that have people rate black and white men on how strong/large/muscular and threatening they perceive them to be. The black men were perceived to be more threatening and that use of force was more likely to be viewed as justified. Black and white Americans both perceived the black men to be stronger, taller, and more muscular than their equal-sized white counterparts. Source
Another study found that people view black boys as older than they are, and that they are more responsible for their actions than white boys, whose actions were more likely to be excused by the belief of childhood innocence. So our society essentially strips black boys of their perceived childhood innocence. Same Source
This is why I try to go to doctors who are black like me. My most recent doctor isn’t black, and she doesn’t understand that I should have my cholesterol checked during my blood workups before the age of 35-40.
I was kind of shocked when I first learned that black patients have measurably better health outcomes when they have black doctors. Ideally I’d like doctors to just not be racist, but in practice I think training more black doctors is the best way to improve care for black patients. It still involves dealing with racism, but I suspect it’s easier to deal with it in medical education than in the whole medical profession.
It really sucks that conversations like this are needed.
I’m actually surprised it’s so low based on what my black and desi friends in particular have said
