Study Offers Young Doctors Strategies To Deal With Discrimination

[SummerMadness]

Study Offers Young Doctors Strategies To Deal With Discrimination

In July 2013, a man arrived in the emergency room of a California hospital seeking treatment for his child. But when the intern on call walked in to see him, the father looked at her name tag and demanded another physician. As a Palestinian, he didn’t want his child treated by a Jewish doctor. The intern turned to her resident supervisor, Emily Whitgob, who told her colleagues about the incident.

The episode, Whitgob said, helped motivate her to study how doctors in training and their institutions should deal with patients’ prejudice and to publish a report that outlines strategies offered by the professionals she and the other authors consulted. The recommendations, published Wednesday in the Association of American Medical Colleges’ journal Academic Medicine, call for trainees to focus on their role as doctors by not taking hostile comments personally and meeting patients’ anxieties with empathy.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

In South Africa during our medical training we are given a short little textbook that explains basic beliefs of world religions and their implications to medical practice. This includes things like not giving blood to Jehovah's witnesses, burying Muslims the same day they die, dietary issues etc.

I am surprised the US medical establishment is only now trying to prepare their doctors for the minefield of patient beliefs, especcially seeing that the US has many strange ones like Christian Science that are so opposed to it.

That being said, it is something an individual has to come to grips with themselves. I would however not have bowed to a patient demand to see another doctor based on religion. What if the doctor had been black and the patient demanded a white one? Would they have complied then as well?

 

[redleghunter]

Study Offers Young Doctors Strategies To Deal With Discrimination

The doctor handled the ugly situation well.

I've seen young doctors treated poorly as well. Everyone wants the most experienced doctor for minor procedures and put off the young ones as if they don't know what they are doing. Some of this is due to younger doctors asking a lot of questions trying to get to understand the condition. They are trained to do that.

I gather a younger doctor who is not American deals with this even more.

 

[Chesterton]

The article says: "The episode, Whitgob said, helped motivate her to study how doctors in training and their institutions should deal with patients’ prejudice..."

What was the prejudice that needed dealing with?

 

[SummerMadness]

The article says: "The episode, Whitgob said, helped motivate her to study how doctors in training and their institutions should deal with patients’ prejudice..."

What was the prejudice that needed dealing with?

I take it you didn't read or understand what you read.

 

[Chesterton]

I take it you didn't read or understand what you read.

I take it you don't have an answer to the question.

 

[SummerMadness]

I take it you don't have an answer to the question.

Again, your comment suggests that you did not read or understand the article.