Opinion: Prejudice and patient choice: an insidious confluence in medicine
Minority physicians like me often hear patients say things like, "I don't want your kind taking care of me!" That kind of racism has no place in health care.
“Idon’t want your kind taking care of me!”
To an outsider, it might have resembled a standoff from an old Western. But it was taking place in a most modern hospital: the patient, an older white man hunched over with a snarl distorting his face; the physician, a young woman with a patterned hijab wrapped around her head.
Minority physicians like me often hear patients make “your kind” remarks. In a , 59% of 822 physicians surveyed reported hearing an offensive remark about a personal characteristic from a patient; the majority of these remarks centered around race, gender, ethnicity, and religion. Another 49%
