Race Medicine
Not long ago, for the second time, white doctors told me that I was more prone to a particular illness because I was black.
In both cases, doctors (one male and one female) said this to me when they had barely begun, let alone completed, examining me. It was said in our introductory conversation, when we briefly talked about symptoms and the reasons I was in their office. The doctors took it upon themselves to mention potential problems as if they were inevitable, rendering tests barely necessary as verification. They were already convinced of the outcome.
Race was not an aspect that I asked about. Doctors brought up race to me on their own.
Doctors said this to me without reviewing any of my other medical records or consulting with my main (primary care) physician who they did not know.
Doctors stated race as a factor for me without any background information on my family, which is even more mixed than my skin color already indicates (we have every shade of color in my family). But I saw that in their minds the two white doctors saw all shades of black — light to dark — as simply and totally black in terms of genealogy, genetics and health.
I identify as a black male in America despite my ancestry having multiple persons who were white as well as my grandmother who was half American Indian and half Scots-Irish. But it wouldn’t matter to the doctors since they (and America) reliably view me solely as simply a black male for all purposes. Yet it does matter when a doctor makes a sweeping statement about my health and race without regard to my actual genetic heritage. My family has no history of the diseases the doctors mentioned.
Nothing else was taken into account, not my age, lifestyle, diet or overall health. It was as if everything else was irrelevant.
One doctor went so far as to state that I had a certain chance (“roughly 32%”) of getting the disease he had in mind. So I was a statistic in waiting. His attitude was that he just knew the odds were against me. It seemed insignificant to him that even in his own (independent, subjective and thus highly flawed) guess, the odds were 68% that I wouldn’t get the disease.
Each doctor, willfully and egotistically blind to anything but their own presumptions, decided they were being helpful when they voluntarily brought up race to me so quickly and automatically. They had a pre-conceived idea and they had already concluded without any doubt that I would have a pre-assigned illness. They didn’t see the inherent racism involved in their statement. Or they just ignored the racism because they decided my skin color justified it.
This is diagnosis by category and not by individual. It is a supremely lazy diagnosis.
You should know that it’s likely you will have X, Y and Z disease for no other reason than you’re black. If you are unaware of this, well, I’m here to tell you. Be grateful, as a medically ignorant person, and know in advance your opinions, ancestry and experiences involving your body and your race are not valid. Because I’m the doctor and I am the only one in the room who knows what I am talking about. If you would just stop being black, you wouldn’t have the...diseases I have informed you about.
I am not simply a simply a race. But as far as the doctors were concerned, they and I didn’t need to know anything else about me. The doctors with whom I had these experiences compelled themselves to point out to a black patient immediately that they are black. It was automatically the biggest factor in a predicted disease that hadn’t actually occurred or offered any signs of occurring.
But if it did, would I receive a black treatment regimen? Should black and white patients in all cases get different examinations and prescriptions for the exact same illness because of race, absent any other factors?
When I entered their offices, race was not on my mind at all. I wasn't hypersensitive about race even though I have experienced racism countless times in my life. I didn't expect the position they would take within minutes of my meeting them.
I got rid of the first doctor in part because they instantly made race a centerpiece of our encounter and their work. I also refused to continue with the second doctor because of their even greater focus on race.
The doctors themselves made their process and analysis fatally flawed. They eradicated my belief that they would be able to diagnose and remedy any condition I had without bias. They eliminated, on their own, my respect of them and my trust.
In the end, I never caught the diseases the two doctors predicted with absolute certainty. I sought and completed evaluations and successful treatment with other doctors.
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ME1603
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