Racism in the Medical Office

I grew up in a time where racial separation was the norm. Black people could not live in the town limits of our little Appalachian community; they had their own section. Our school was integrated for the first time in 1957 (first grade) when the smaller schools that served the black community closed. My first-grade teacher made all of the black students sit in the back of the room. The black kids seemed to be always late, since it was several miles further for them to walk to school. There was Lorraine, Betty Jane, Edmond, Jim, Tyrone, and Eugene. We were all friends.

Children do not really care about skin color; but our parents sure did. My mother was a closet racist. In other words, she thought she was open-minded and liberal, but she was not. She did not allow me to invite ALL of my friends to a birthday party, so I did not have any more parties. When I was in college in the '70s my roommate was black. I brought him home for a weekend (properly warned, of course). My mother was polite and gratuitous to Bill. She even prepared a meal of fried chicken and watermelon, much to Bill's amusement. She pointed out to Bill, a decorated ex-Green Beret corpsman, that I once had a black (she really used the word, "colored") woman baby-sit for me when I was little. Bill, not missing a beat, told her that a colored woman took care of him when he was little, too! She didn't get it.

I moved to California after finishing my medical training. This was liberal San Francisco in a very turbulent, post-Vietnam world. Peace. Free Love. And, more importantly, racial harmony (sort of). One of my favorite patients, a black woman, invited my wife and I to hear her sing at a jazz club in Oakland. I did not hesitate to take her up on that offer. As the only white couple in the club, we felt very unwelcome. During an intermission, a black man told me that I should leave. We left. Jeannie, my patient, was terribly embarrassed by this incident. Incidentally, Jeannie came in second place in Star Search several years later. She should have been the winner.

Fast forward twenty years. I now work in the Sacramento area, purported to be the most racially diverse large city in America. You would not believe the ethnic and cultural diversity of our office staff - Blacks, Asians, African (from Ethiopia), Native American, disabled, Gay, Jewish, Christian Fundamentalists, Hindi, Muslim, young, old, obese, and of course, one Appalachian hillbilly (Insert "Dueling Banjo" music here.) Our local community and population that we serve is equally as diverse, from wealthy, highly-educated Caucasians to the drug-abusing, methamphetamine-cooking crowd. We have many Lesbian and gay couples with children, grandparents (and great-grandparents) caring for their grandkids, single dads, single moms, and a few people who should not have had children at all.

My medical assistant is a wonderful, funny, and dedicated black woman - a perfect compliment to my style of practice. She has evolved over the years to be a very good partner in this busy practice, and I am pleased to have her. However, it was not without incident. Initially, any complaint that I would mention was not taken well, even though I tried to be very diplomatic in my approach. She reacted passive-aggressively by putting in patients S-L-O-W-L-Y, so that I would have to work through lunch. One day, we had a heart-to-heart talk about our relationship. She felt that I did not respect her because she was black. I told her that was not the case. I just needed to have a lunch hour, or I get very crabby.

One day, a patient complained to me that she did not want to have that black woman take her child's vital signs. When I asked her why, she said that it is her "black attitude". I responded by making sure my nurse would not participate in her child's care anymore. I asked her to see another medical provider. If she did not like my medical assistant, I would not be taking care of her kids anymore, either.

I would take my medical assistant to lunch periodically, especially now that I seemed to be getting a lunch hour again. At the local restaurant, she tells me that she feels that people are staring at her wondering why a black woman is having lunch with an old, white man. I don't know if this is true or not, but I can certainly understand that she had a life quite different than mine. Racism still exists.

One thing that I learned from gross anatomy and surgery is that we are all the same inside. In medicine, natural skin color is basically irrelevant unless, of course, it is blue.

Related Topics: New Push to End Heart Care's Racial Gap, New Fight for Racial Equality in Health Care

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