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On my first day of medical school in the 1980s, I met my cadaver in the anatomy lab and gave her a name to humanize the unsettling transition into the cutthroat world of medicine. But for me, science quickly became art as well as science.
The goal was to learn to be calm enough to carry out the necessary treatment using the tools I had at my fingertips, while not sacrificing my humanity in the process. . That was and always has been my goal.
Fortunately, I shared that goal with all the other medical students as I learned to examine and analyze the body’s organs and how they function. I also learned that this amazing physiological and anatomical reality is shared by all patients. None were better than the others. In the eyes of science, and in the eyes of God, all men were equal.
This has been the goal of medicine since the time of Hippocrates. Everyone is equal and no one is discriminated against.
Anti-racism trumps actual medical care, putting patients at risk.
This sense of equality was further reinforced during my stay at Bellevue Hospital in New York City during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s.
We accepted all the guests. In fact, America’s oldest public hospital, Bellevue Hospital, was famous for accepting all kinds of patients.
We have learned not to differentiate between race, ethnicity, gender, rich and poor, even criminals and victims.
We were simply trying to save lives and alleviate suffering.
As physicians, we knew we needed to address the special needs of our patients and their culture, race, gender, and ethnicity, as well as their specific medical needs and anticipated illnesses.
Medical schools promote segregation in medicine, and see how it hurts patients
At the clinic, he took pride in speaking French to those who only spoke French and fledgling Spanish to those who only spoke or understood Spanish.
At Bellevue, we learned to draw blood from drug-using patients in the middle of the night. Success required her precious 1-2 hours of sleep.
Most of our patients were assertive and did not tolerate condescension or arrogance.
Bellevue Hospital has been a great melting pot for physicians-in-training for this very reason. Needless to say, there was also the challenge of treating multisystem diseases, most notably AIDS.
I realized early on that many patients felt more comfortable with people they could interact with directly, such as younger patients with younger doctors, or female patients with female gynecologists or gynecologists. . In some cases, patients requested to see a doctor of their own race or ethnicity.
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I realized that the medical profession needs to do more to meet this need and was very happy to see more and more female gynecologists. We need more Black and Hispanic physicians.
But at the same time, I was proud to be able to go back to my medical roots and learn the languages of different generations and cultures.
For me, it was always an honor to be able to enter a different world than the one I lived in as a child. In the process of sharing my medical history and getting tested, people tell me their secrets, and I don’t take them for granted. And I don’t criticize them for that.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for reminders. I do not object to any organization or society with which I am an ally or a member of having policies commensurate with the same equality and overcoming inequality that I have based my career on. .
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Just to be clear, don’t assume that all doctors are automatically biased or prejudiced to their core. In fact, the opposite is true. Similarly, don’t think that prejudice and bigotry can be taught in courses or conscription. The solution needs to be much more granular than that. It must emanate from the physician’s core belief system.
Our training teaches respect for the dignity of every human being from the beginning.
Click here to read more about Mark Siegel