Doctors of colour in the NHS live in fear

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My experience of doctors has been that every person of colour has been a better doctor than the white doctors I have encountered. Doctors of colour do not feel unnecessarily privileged and thus, listen to their patients, since they have long had an oppressed role within society.

White doctors confidently assert things that are not true, and trust their own judgement too often. This even happens with female, white doctors, some of whom are patronising and it can even affect how long it takes to convince a person of something, or build a relationship with them, particularly in the context of an NHS medical appointment, which is often rushed anyway for many people, since 10 minutes isn't a long time to explain several different issues that a person may need to talk about.

Ethnic minorities are a lot warmer in my experience and share their feelings readily, including professionals in any domain of business.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/doctors-of-colour-in-nhs-live-in-fear-says-psychiatrist/ar-AATpjsl

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 08 Mar 2022, 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Link is giving a momentary screen with "Whoops we can't find the page you are looking for. these things happen" a bit more text, some numbers, then going to MSN main page.

My bad.

Fixed it for you.

One of the biggest problems doctors of colour have to put up with is rude patients.

If you work as a PoC nurse or doctor in public/private hospitals then a good proportion of patients will refuse your service and the hospital need to find a "white" nurse or doctor (the health code requirement to find a health worker the patient is willing to work with takes priority over anti-discrimination law when the patient has a life threatening illness or needs first aid).

I've spoken with Indian doctors who commonly say they watch patients walk into their surgery look at the name plate and walk straight out. The worst patients are those who walk into a surgery asking to see an "Australian doctor" which is code for white doctor.

This creates tremendous mental health strain for doctors of colour.

Fear of physical violence is also there but to be honest apart from 1-2 incidents its not as big an issue.

Doctors of colour are harrassed in the United Kingdom also, usually by uneducated working class folk who unwittingly exude racism - often not because they are bad people, but because they come from families who cannot afford to educate them or don't want to afford to educate them.

Oh I think it extends to the upper classes as well. But they are usually willing to pay for a private consultation from an advertised medical doctor with a good Anglo-Saxon name.

Here in Melbourne South Asian general practioners usually bulk bill (free/subsidised by government) while white doctors tend to charge full fees.

Indian and Chinese doctors nowadays opt for specialised fields where patients have no choice but to see a specialist otherwise expect to be put on a waiting list for things like elective surgery.

I specifically choose doctors of colour nowadays. They persistently perform better as unfortunately, they have more to prove in white society.

I wouldn't say all are good/better. Asia/south Asia is literally billions of people I had a lady doctor in Malaysia who refused to touch me and used a ruler to give me a check-up.

Is the mental image this produces intentional?

Meanwhile in Canada.

Lol, I guess making negative racial generalizations based on personal, anecdotal experience is fine as long as you're making those generalizations about white people.

And you're a "cultural conservative" to boot. Lol again. How are you (or virtually any other "conservative" these days for that matter) actually any different to a liberal again?

to take my pulse

This kind of thing should result in a jail sentence, that way the toxic idea of white supremacy cannot be enforced. Unfortunately, I have personally experienced this exact thing from a nurse who I believe now lives in Canada and is from the United States.

She is a frothing-at-the-mouth racist, behind her figurative social mask of medical benevolence.

I would hazard a guess that by "cultural conservative," blitzkrieg means "relatively conservative, compared to most people in the LGBTQ+ community." (blitzkrieg, am I correct about this?)

After all, "cultural conservatives" outside the LGBTQ+ community are, first and foremost, anti-gay and anti-trans.

The LGBTQ+ community has always had a small right wing, whose members occasionally have done some good. For example, the push for marriage equality came originally from the right wing of the gay rights movement.

(Back in the late 1990's, the movement's left wing wanted "civil unions" to replace legal "marriage" for everyone, so that the term "marriage" could then be re-defined as a purely religious thing, not regulated by secular law in any way. Only "civil unions" would have legal status, not to be dictated by religion in any way. But the idea of "marriage" equality turned out to be much more popular among gays outside the organized activist groups, and hence was eventually adopted by gay rights activist group across the movement's political spectrum.)

On the other hand, back in the 1990's and early 2000's at least, the gay rights movement's right wingers were generally against the idea of a single unified LGBTQ+ community, and against any kind of alliance between the gay rights and trans rights movements, which they regarded as totally separate. I'm glad that the gay right wingers didn't win on that issue.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 10 Mar 2022, 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, to be clear, I am left-centre economically for the United Kingdom where I live (though I think the U.S.A is probably better off with a centre-right political power). Each country has history that makes it difficult to be anything other than those two options, economically (for success) - in my humble opinion.

I believe that the LGBTQ+ community, should be completely unified, and that those who are more politically right than radical leftists - need to be accepted. People such as me who are ostracised for being a different kind of LGBTQ+ person.