Richard G Soper on Physician Discrimination

After working as a medical doctor for the most of my life, I, Richard G Soper, have seen how the physician workforce in the United States of America moved away from being comprised primarily of white men. Now, opportunities are open and abounding for other doctors, as well as the risk of patients discriminating some doctors. Comments like "Are you sure you are old enough?" "I would like to see an American doctor", "You are too pretty to be a doctor", and more, are more often becoming public nowadays. Much like other things in the United States, the face of a typical patient’s doctor has changed. However, despite the changes in the traditional physician mold, the patients, in most circumstances, continue to resist these changes.

Discrimination in the medical field not only has mental health effects. I, Richard G Soper, genuinely believe that it also has a monetary and legal impact on the physicians. Although there is an influx of women and minorities in the American physician workforce, it is still difficult to find training concerning patient requests. Often time, patients neglect clinicians who belong to minorities, which has real-world implications for financial compensation. The disparity can be as high as approximately $40,000 in the case of black male physicians and $20,000 in the case of Asian physicians. Although other factors such as geographic distributions, self-employment vs. hospital employment, and specialty or primary care, patient discrimination have financial consequences on medical doctors in the United States of America.

A 2015 survey of Stanford pediatric resident doctors revealed that 15% of them had seen or experienced physician discrimination and mistreatment by patients. Doctors initially determine if a patient's presentation if it is medically stable and if the request is not because of underlying pathology or possible reversible cause, to address the issue in the form of case presentations. This strategy allows resident doctors to practice turning the focus of the request into doing what is best for the patient and to indicate that the patient's health is of utmost priority and is higher than any prejudice.

I, Richard G Soper, think medical schools should standardize in their curriculum. Medical schools should also educate future doctors on how to best approach situations where patient preferences take precedence over their health. It would create a culture of inclusion, acknowledgment, and awareness in the physician workforce.