Seeing as I am a minority (In the United States), I found myself instantly intrigued by this article. The article discusses how though all humans obviously feel the same when it comes to pain, depending on their race, they get treated very differently. The article states something that I found to be very interesting "pain is not colorblind." Similar to the Golden Race Theory, unfortunately, this is true.
It really startled me to hear that the amount of pain medication being prescribed was significantly less for those who were minorities than those who weren't.
Is it really possible for healthcare "professionals" to do such a thing? It amazes me that there are people who have no way of sympathizing with people beyond their outer appearance.
In one section of the article, it talks about a woman who had severe neck pain and wasn't properly looked at when she visited multiple specialists. They all believed that she was there just to receive narcotics. If that doesn't say racial profiling I don't know what does.
It's really difficult to fathom someone going into the healthcare industry with the intent of helping people, and then allowing racial "stereotypes" to get in their way.
Honestly though I'm going to play devils advocate, when do you draw the line? When do you make the judgement between whether you think a patient really needs a drug or if they don't?
It really saddens me that the only logical advice there is to give is to "keep searching until they find a doctor who will listen and take their pain seriously." Maybe this is the reason why a lot of people resort to illegal drug purchases...
This is very sad. I've read something similar to this (situation-wise) in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It's a book that explore the psychology around subconscious, snap-second judgments.
ReplyDeleteOne scenario in the book was a successful car salesman-- he explained that many car salesmen have trouble because they let their preconceived notions about a customer's ability to pay or buy get in the way of their customer service. They overlooked valued customers because of clothing, gender, age or race. He stated that his success as a salesman was due to his ability to lay those judgments aside-- instead of letting his preconceived notions cloud his mind, he assumed that all were willing to buy and looked instead in their faces to determine what they needed and how to get it for them.
I wish we could all be like this car salesmen. Then that poor woman, and all the others like her, would be treated based on their pain and not their status as a minority.