After the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, concerns have arisen that a pathway into medicine may become much harder for students of color.
I will say that when I had doctors who looked like me, they almost always treated me like shit (for example, an emergency room physician practically assaulted me while performing an arterial blood draw because he didn’t like that I was pushing back against his dismissing my medical complaints).
Conversely, most of the doctors that did not look like me treated me very well and listened when I needed to discuss whatever health issue concerned me.
All of this to say that while it would be nice to see more people from underrepresented backgrounds enter professions such as medicine at the physician level, patients who look like their providers are not automatically going to be treated better. It will always be about who is a good human and practices good medicine, regardless of their background.
I will say that when I had doctors who looked like me, they almost always treated me like shit (for example, an emergency room physician practically assaulted me while performing an arterial blood draw because he didn’t like that I was pushing back against his dismissing my medical complaints).
Conversely, most of the doctors that did not look like me treated me very well and listened when I needed to discuss whatever health issue concerned me.
All of this to say that while it would be nice to see more people from underrepresented backgrounds enter professions such as medicine at the physician level, patients who look like their providers are not automatically going to be treated better. It will always be about who is a good human and practices good medicine, regardless of their background.