Moved Medical school admissions and race - was: VP pick

[laughing dog]

There you go again with hair splitting.

No, you are.

You denied people graduated from medical school.

I have not! That is a preposterous interpretation of what I wrote, even accounting for your reading comprehension skills.
I denied people graduate medical school as a "cardiothoracic surgeon" or similar. Which they don't. And the distinction between med schools and residencies is hardly splitting a hair. More like splitting a giant log.

You denied people graduated from medical school with specialities. Hair splitting and spinning and personsl insults won't change that. But you keep doing you.

 

[Toni]

Figure 11. Percentage of U.S. medical school matriculants planning to practice in an underserved area by race/ethnicity, academic year 2018-2019

Figure 11 displays the percentage of 2018-2019 matriculants planning to practice in an underserved area by race/ethnicity.

www.aamc.org

Interesting. I would like to know how these numbers correlate with where people actually end up working.
And I also do not think that justifies discriminating against white and Asian students. Regardless of one's declarations when applying to med school, where one works depends on how many jobs are open in certain areas. You can't hire a physician at Bumfuck Medical Center unless that position exists and is funded. And if it exists and is funded, somebody will be hired for it. Sure, most people will apply in desirable urban areas, more than positions are available, and those that don't get hired will apply elsewhere. Whether or not they indicated desire to work in Bumfuck.

Note also that discrepancies between average grades and scores in med school are similar to discrepancies in undergraduate education. So healthcare-specific explanations do not hold water.

Actually, Derek, I live in Bumfuck Middle America. Our local medical clinic and hospital have a hard time retaining staff. Partly, the pay is low. Largely, public schools are not as well funded as they should be, largely because the local billionaire ( no mistake about the B) supports private schools and undermines the public’s every single way that he can, because it helps keep the factory workers’ kids believing they are t worth much so they don’t expect much and their parents think their kids are as dumb as they are because the parents grew up being told how dumb they are. It is simultaneously heartbreaking, infuriating and nauseating. More than one kid attending the private has told me that every single at the kids in the private are told how lucky they are that their parents love them enough to send them to private schools. It is more than disgusting—it is detrimental to the wellbeing of our community and the children growing up here. The nearest town larger than this one is 45 miles away. The nearest major city/metropolitan area is over 100 miles away. Like many small communities parents look around and ask themselves if this might be a place they’re kids will want to live in as adults. Largely, the answer is no.

Short answer: Lots and lots of newly minted ducks will work fur a few years in a small town or rural area to fulfill the terms of loan forgiveness but then they leave fir higher paying communities with more opportunity for their kids.

Most people refer to stay with a doctor they like, rather than see them leave after a few years. Then the patient has to start over again, building trust and rapport with a new doc.

Mind you: my community is well over 90% white. Imagine if we were not.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Every time that this chart is brought up, I mention that there is a different distribution of medical schools that different groups go to. For example, African Americans in significant numbers go to Historically Black universities.

How many of those are there? There's Morehouse, Meharry, any others?

Pay attention to what I wrote:

Every time that this chart is brought up, I mention that there is a different distribution of medical schools that different groups go to.

There are different tiers of schools, different kinds of schools, different strictness of criteria for admission and different groups apply to these types of different schools at different rates.

As 1 type of division, JUST ONE EXAMPLE of categorical difference, which is why I wrote the following...

FOR EXAMPLE, ...

Now, you respond by focusing only on Historically Black, as opposed to the wide range of schools. That is an error on your part.

By the way, yes, some 14% of African Americans attend such universities, but that is beside the point because the different criteria, stringency, and tiering of schools as they apply to different groups who apply extend well beyond 1 group and 1 type of university.

The medical schools there have missions regarding serving in urban, underserved, and/or minority areas and their criteria for admission are less than some other medical schools so far as test scores.

Would they extend those same low admissions standards to, say, an Asian applicant? If not, they are still discriminating by race.

Yes.

So you can't really take two means, one for African Americans, say for example, and one for Whites, and expect them to be equal for admissions nationally.

If there was no racial discrimination, I would most certainly expect them to be equal. The few black med schools are not enough to throw off the nationwide means that much, which means Emory, MCG etc. are also practicing discrimination. That said, it would be interesting to see school by school stats.

This is your error in comprehension because you chose to only focus on historically black universities which were meant as only an example of how different groups apply to different schools that have different criteria.

If you don't want to think about it in terms of race, then think about it in terms of socio-economic status or parental income. Many poorer people have extenuating circumstances that bring about reasons to go somewhere local and/or more affordable, even if financial aid could be available. See? We're not even talking about race and you can think about just how much this impacts everyone. Except then you'll next have to realize that socio-economic class is correlated to race and so therefore such schools are going to be more attended by the races in question that seem to be lagging in scores.

So, yes, this is a very large, confounding issue and shows that your expectation of "I would certainly expect them to be equal," is invalid.

As to the very specific example of historically Black universities, if you have about 14% of the African American MCAT takers going to historically Black universities and averaging about 485 on score, then, yes, that absolutely would throw off the mean of the rest of the sub-population.

But, of course, the situation isn't so simple as two tiers of schools: HBU and nonHBU since there are many schools and tiers.

That isn't to say there is nothing at all to the claim being made by the op post so far as some kind of other bias but without eliminating this significant, confounding impact to means of different groups in entrance, the chart isn't any kind of proof.

It is evidence of racial discrimination nationwide. Your contention is that it is only due to a handful of black med schools discriminating against non-blacks, but where is your evidence for that? And even so, Morehouse or Meharry discriminating by race is still wrong.

Now your comprehension is made even worse by bizarre assumptions about HBU discrimination and the insignificant percentage of HBUs among Black students.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It strikes me as similar to the "personality scores" given by Harvard where Asians were routinely given low "personality scores" in order to reduce the number of Asians getting accepted.

You assume it was done “in order to reduce the number of Asians getting accepted,” but the intent behind the measure is speculation on your part. Equally likely is to react to other goals such as who tends to make it through residency with favorable job reviews from their advisors. And if that does not include certain socio-economic backgrounds, that may have significantly different representations in diversity, then the “diversity” numbers will look different.

Why do you give them every benefit of the doubt when if the shoe were on the other foot you would certainly think it was discrimination??

This is a great question. Let me give you the answer, so that you’ll know.

It has a corollary to the utter fear that many racists have when they think about equality. This is not speculation, they say it out loud, so it’s their words, not mine. They fear - truly fear - what it will be like to be victims of the discrimination. They say that they expect minorities to treat them the same way the minorities were treated.

How many times do you have to be told that I favor a colorblind society?? I want skin color to be like eye color--irrelevant.

But the truth - clear and demonstrated - is that minorities do not want retribution. They only want equality of opportunity. Or, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “I do not ask for special privileges, I only ask that you take your boots off my neck”

For the most part, true, but incomplete--plenty of them are racist, also. And while we have been fighting white racism for 50 years we haven't done much of anything about racism by others (we have encountered obvious racism directed against for not being Oriental. You think the community would tolerate a realtor who would only show to whites?) And some do want retribution--look at Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Minorities do not want to take over and live as the holders of 98% of the jobs. They do not want to incacerate white people, they do not want to punish with higher loan rates and lower wages compared to the minorities.

History has shown us that every time minorities have gained equality and inclusion, they have delivered equality and inclusion.

Really, now? Most all of ex-colonial Africa would say otherwise.

In other words, we’ve never seen anyone “try to decrease numbers” for the sake of decreasing numbers. There’s no rebound, no overcorrection, no vengeance, no retribution. We can see it in example after example after example of when women and minorities finally get to have the occasional member in a position of power, they do not tend to abuse it.

No overcorrection?!?! We are already in overcorrection. And overcorrection will in time lead to rebound. So far it's a pretty hard fight to win to prove you were discriminated against for being white. What are minority preferences but explicit, legal discrimination??

It has to be a slow change because of inertia. An immediate change in procedures translates to a slow change in the outcome. Deciding to admit more minorities doesn't make more qualified minorities magically appear. That's the colleges. And the high schools. And the grade schools. And the communities. To fairly get equal numbers you need a cohort that grew up without discrimination.

No it does not need to maintain intertia. This is where “unless a force is applied to it” has a legislative analog. Create a program, pass a law, fund an avenue. All of these can dispense with the excuse that inertia is the only force we can weild against a problem.

You fail to understand. The inertia is in the form of the existing people with their existing skill levels. Saying "hire more blacks!" doesn't make more qualified blacks exist. Making them exist takes a long time.

Likewise, in the workforce you need such a cohort. Even if you could abolish all discrimination with the stroke of a pen it would take 50+ years for that to propagate to the boardroom.

Nope, all the nope.
50 years is a stupid reference plan, making excuses for zero action. People’s careers are rarely over 40. So you are claiming that NO ONE in the workforce can be a part of the change? No existing minority person currently in a company can ever hope to become CEO or board member?

I'm saying 50 years (I'm counting from school age, not work age) is the minimum possible time it will take to reach full equality in the qualified applicants for CEO and the like. There are some, but they do not currently exist in anything like the same percentage as blacks exist in society.

Nope, all the nope. The CEO of my company was elevated to that role at the age of 45. So that means it could be done in less than 20 years.

No, 40. Until the schools are equal there won't be as many qualified people.

And it could be faster than that with actual intent to take down the barriers that have been in front of the EXISTING minority employees.

Not sure why you are willing to throw all of them under the bus as unworthy, or why you would deny that they are currently facing barriers that could be taken down without waiting for people to be born and raised to be CEOs and board members.

I said equality. I didn't say no qualified blacks exist, I said not enough exist to match their share in society.

Also, in another post you proposed that medical schools should change the residencies if they want more GPs, but this will obviously not solve the problem as people are not required to stay in the area of their residency after completion, and so the underserved areas will continue to have to replace their healthcare force regularly and at great cost, unless they can select in medical school for applicants who have a passion and a reason to commit to serving these areas.

And why do you assume their statement of intent are truthful? Those with any form of tertiary education are prone to moving around. Once again it sounds like a justification for discrimination.

Goodness, haven’t you done any hiring? Haven’t you ever read a cover letter? There are ways to make clear in your essay that you are likely to stay. And there are things to look for in your applicants to provide strong usable clues.

But what requires them to be truthful?

https://www.amazon.com/Left-My-Homework-Hamptons-Teaching/dp/1335775536

Among other things she discusses how some of her students were gaming the college admission process and in ways a lot more complex than simply an essay. If whites can do it you think blacks can't, also??

- the next time you decide to launch into a rant about medical school admissions when you are in a discussion about the VP candidate choices.

The reason medical school admission is brought up is because the data about it is so clear.

It’s not clear in the way you think, as I outlined in my reply to Derec and to you.
You think it’s clear in an action to address discrimination is bad way, but that can only be true if you did not understand anything that I wrote.
You think “it is so clear” and you still think it would be reasonable to wait FIFTY (more) years for some minorities to appear in a boardroom.

Note that I'm not the one who brought it up.

I said Harris was a DEI pick--but I've also said that all vice presidents are DEI picks. It's about appealing to the segment of the population the presidential candidate isn't as appealing to--by definition, diversity. DEI isn't always about race.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Has anyone mentioned that the reason we need more Black doctors is because there is lots of data that shows that it's common for Black people to be treated unfairly by a good percentage of white doctors? I'm going to post one link that explains this but I've read many during my days as a nurse. I did know one white doctor who was outstanding when it came to how he treated his Black patients. He even chose to practice in a low income Black neighborhood and walked with me once to visit a home health patient but people like him are rare. I've known a couple of incompetent Black doctors but I've known lots of nasty incompetent white doctors too, so bad doctors come in all ethnicities. But, even if the grades and MCAT scores are in some cases a little bit lower, there is a need for more Black doctors, especially in a state like Ga., where over 30% of the population is Black. Grades and MCAT scores don't determine if someone will be a great physician, regardless of ethnic background. Compassion and keeping up to date with one's area of practice are far more important and sadly, there are too many providers who lack compassion and don't seem to keep up to date with the newest things in medicine. It's complicated.

Note that the idea that black patients being treated unfairly has been shown to be mostly a socioeconomic confounder. Blacks and whites do not show statistical differences when you compare their treatment at the same facility. But underfunded inner city facilities treat everyone worse that decently funded suburban facilities.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

First - may I remind you that they are not “girls”. They are women. They are adult, post-pubescent humans. It’s time to stop infantilizing women by calling them children.

"Girl" is commonly used in the English language for young adult women.

Not just young adult. I know a group of middle aged women hikers who refer to themselves as "girls". I haven't specifically discussed the definition with any of them but their usage appears to be that "girl" refers to those who are younger in body and spirit and "women" refer to those who have settled down.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It’s been explained to you more than once in this thread that it is not discrimination to use more criteria than GPA and MCAT scores to admit students

Nobody is arguing against that. But race and ethnicity, nor gender, should be among those criteria.

and that the differences in scores are small and not predictive of who will make a good physician.

The differences are not small and they are predictive of med school performance.
The Validity of MCAT Scores in Predicting Students' Performance and Progress in Medical School: Results From a Multisite Study
Take this paper. I do not have access to the full text, only the abstract.

Sorry, there's a major confounder apparent in the abstract: Researchers examined data from 17 U.S. and Canadian MD-granting medical schools for 2016 and 2017 entrants who volunteered for the research and applied with scores from the current MCAT exam.

Seems pretty low value as the sample of those who volunteered is probably non-random.

 

[Toni]

It’s been explained to you more than once in this thread that it is not discrimination to use more criteria than GPA and MCAT scores to admit students

Nobody is arguing against that. But race and ethnicity, nor gender, should be among those criteria.

and that the differences in scores are small and not predictive of who will make a good physician.

The differences are not small and they are predictive of med school performance.
The Validity of MCAT Scores in Predicting Students' Performance and Progress in Medical School: Results From a Multisite Study
Take this paper. I do not have access to the full text, only the abstract.

Sorry, there's a major confounder apparent in the abstract: Researchers examined data from 17 U.S. and Canadian MD-granting medical schools for 2016 and 2017 entrants who volunteered for the research and applied with scores from the current MCAT exam.

Seems pretty low value as the sample of those who volunteered is probably non-random.

IE you don’t like the results…,

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Here lies your impasse to this discussion

Exactly. I view people as individuals, not mere ciphers for a racial or ethnic identity.
Discriminating in favor of blacks today is not fixing injustices of yesteryear. It is compounding one injustice by adding another, it is not fixing any injustice.

It’s not yesteryear - it’s happening right now. Of this there is no debate. The data is very clear.

I really think that this is the piece of the puzzle you are missing

1) The "evidence" is always disparate outcomes. That does not prove discrimination.

2) Yes, I'm sure there are racists. I'm sure there are racists of every group. The question should be whether there are enough of them to pose a substantial obstacle.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It’s been explained to you more than once in this thread that it is not discrimination to use more criteria than GPA and MCAT scores to admit students

Nobody is arguing against that. But race and ethnicity, nor gender, should be among those criteria.

and that the differences in scores are small and not predictive of who will make a good physician.

The differences are not small and they are predictive of med school performance.
The Validity of MCAT Scores in Predicting Students' Performance and Progress in Medical School: Results From a Multisite Study
Take this paper. I do not have access to the full text, only the abstract.

Sorry, there's a major confounder apparent in the abstract: Researchers examined data from 17 U.S. and Canadian MD-granting medical schools for 2016 and 2017 entrants who volunteered for the research and applied with scores from the current MCAT exam.

Seems pretty low value as the sample of those who volunteered is probably non-random.

IE you don’t like the results…,

Huh? The study supports my side. I'm just saying it's got a bad enough confounder that I don't think it's decent evidence.

 

[JohnG]

Here lies your impasse to this discussion

Exactly. I view people as individuals, not mere ciphers for a racial or ethnic identity.
Discriminating in favor of blacks today is not fixing injustices of yesteryear. It is compounding one injustice by adding another, it is not fixing any injustice.

It’s not yesteryear - it’s happening right now. Of this there is no debate. The data is very clear.

I really think that this is the piece of the puzzle you are missing

1) The "evidence" is always disparate outcomes. That does not prove discrimination.

2) Yes, I'm sure there are racists. I'm sure there are racists of every group. The question should be whether there are enough of them to pose a substantial obstacle.

That's not it. Just one example here. If you google "racial discrimination" followed by "car loans" or "uni admission", "jobs" you'll see similar studies.

I invite Derec to read this as well and maybe do a 30 second search.

We can't have a conversation about DEI if one party doesn't believe that there was a problem before the concept was initiated.

 

[southernhybrid]

Has anyone mentioned that the reason we need more Black doctors is because there is lots of data that shows that it's common for Black people to be treated unfairly by a good percentage of white doctors?

How common is it really? And how much is unfair perception vs. reality. It is black patients who can be biased, not just white doctors. In any case, it is unjust to discriminate against white prospective med students because of some other white people might have done.

Also, why do you persist in the racist practice of capitalizing "black" but not "white". Either both should be capitalized, or neither should.

But, even if the grades and MCAT scores are in some cases a little bit lower,

Significantly lower.

there is a need for more Black doctors, especially in a state like Ga., where over 30% of the population is Black.

I reject this idea that black patients should be seen by black doctors. Would you extend that to white doctors and white patients etc., or it is a one-way street, like most discourse about race?

And I do not think lowering academic standards for black med students is the way to go here. If you want more black doctors, start in grade schools. Reduce the achievement gap by actually lifting performance of black students instead of having lower standards for them. That would also require a change in culture. There is a lot of sense of entitlement, that "white America" owes black people special treatment.

Grades and MCAT scores don't determine if someone will be a great physician, regardless of ethnic background.

They do determine that to a great degree. Not alone, of course, but they are significant metrics.
And they are more objective (esp. MCAT which is not plagued by inconsistent course difficulty and grading among different colleges) and are harder to game than essays or extracurricular activities. They are therefore areas that students from less well off families can control more. Access to extracurriculars are often based on connections. Rich families can just pay a ghostwriter to write the personal statement and secondary essays for the students. But nobody can take the MCAT for him and her. Rich and poor, white or black or otherwise, they all have to sit their ass for eight hours in the test center and take the same test. That makes it a much fairer metric than others.

Compassion and keeping up to date with one's area of practice are far more important and sadly, there are too many providers who lack compassion and don't seem to keep up to date with the newest things in medicine. It's complicated.

It's hard to predict the former, and I see no reason to assume that compassion differs by race. As far as the latter, I would think that more academically minded people enjoy learning new things and that they therefore would be more inclined to keep up with developments in their field, and maybe even contribute to them.

In South Florida, when people want to find a doctor who's Black, they often end up contacting Adrienne Hibbert through her online website, Black Doctors of South Florida.

Anybody else find that kind of separatism concerning?

Hibbert says she got the idea for the website after she gave birth to her son 15 years ago. Her obstetrician at the time was white, and the suburban hospital outside Miami didn't feel welcoming to her as a Black woman pregnant with her first child.

"Did not feel welcoming". But was that because of anything the white doctor said or did or because of Hibbert's own prejudices?

"They had no singular photos of a Black woman and her Black child," Hibbert says. "I want someone who understands my background. I want someone who understands the foods that I eat. I want someone who understands my upbringing and things that my grandma used to tell me."

It seems to be the latter - it is Hibbert's prejudices, not the doctors that were making her uncomfortable.

I've also read that a good number of Black men don't like going to the doctor unless they can find a Black doctor because of racial discrimination.

Yes, but racial discrimination by whom? It seems these patients are discriminating on the basis of race, not the doctors.

You really don't understand. People want a doctor or NP who understands them and who doesn't discriminate against them due to their race or gender. it's as simple as that. If you bothered to do some DD, you would learn how Black patients have frequently been discriminated against by white doctors, especially when it comes to pain management. I'll help you out a little. bit.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483/

The present work examines beliefs associated with racial bias in pain management, a critical health care domain with well-documented racial disparities. Specifically, this work reveals that a substantial number of white laypeople and medical students and residents hold false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites and demonstrates that these beliefs predict racial bias in pain perception and treatment recommendation accuracy. It also provides the first evidence that racial bias in pain perception is associated with racial bias in pain treatment recommendations. Taken together, this work provides evidence that false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites continue to shape the way we perceive and treat black people—they are associated with racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment recommendations.
Keywords: racial bias, pain perception, health care disparities, pain treatment

Go to:​

ABSTRACT​

Black Americans are systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans. We examine whether this racial bias is related to false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites (e.g., “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s skin”). Study 1 documented these beliefs among white laypersons and revealed that participants who more strongly endorsed false beliefs about biological differences reported lower pain ratings for a black (vs. white) target. Study 2 extended these findings to the medical context and found that half of a sample of white medical students and residents endorsed these beliefs. Moreover, participants who endorsed these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient’s pain as lower and made less accurate treatment recommendations. Participants who did not endorse these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient’s pain as higher, but showed no bias in treatment recommendations. These findings suggest that individuals with at least some medical training hold and may use false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites to inform medical judgments, which may contribute to racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment.
A young man goes to the doctor complaining of severe pain in his back. He expects and trusts that a medical expert, his physician, will assess his pain and prescribe the appropriate treatment to reduce his suffering. After all, a primary goal of health care is to reduce pain and suffering. Whether he receives the standard of care that he expects, however, is likely contingent on his race/ethnicity.

 

[Toni]

It’s been explained to you more than once in this thread that it is not discrimination to use more criteria than GPA and MCAT scores to admit students

Nobody is arguing against that. But race and ethnicity, nor gender, should be among those criteria.

and that the differences in scores are small and not predictive of who will make a good physician.

The differences are not small and they are predictive of med school performance.
The Validity of MCAT Scores in Predicting Students' Performance and Progress in Medical School: Results From a Multisite Study
Take this paper. I do not have access to the full text, only the abstract.

Sorry, there's a major confounder apparent in the abstract: Researchers examined data from 17 U.S. and Canadian MD-granting medical schools for 2016 and 2017 entrants who volunteered for the research and applied with scores from the current MCAT exam.

Seems pretty low value as the sample of those who volunteered is probably non-random.

IE you don’t like the results…,

Huh? The study supports my side. I'm just saying it's got a bad enough confounder that I don't think it's decent evidence.

Actually it doesn’t.

 

[laughing dog]

1) The "evidence" is always disparate outcomes. That does not prove discrimination.

Daya only provides evidence - nothing proves a claim. That is true in “proving” racial discrimination or in “proving” equal treatment. It works both ways. You demand “proof” for the unprovable, discount any evidence unfavorable to your position but then offer evidence to prove the your position.
Which strongly suggests your views are faith-based.

 

[Toni]

Has anyone mentioned that the reason we need more Black doctors is because there is lots of data that shows that it's common for Black people to be treated unfairly by a good percentage of white doctors?

How common is it really? And how much is unfair perception vs. reality. It is black patients who can be biased, not just white doctors. In any case, it is unjust to discriminate against white prospective med students because of some other white people might have done.

Also, why do you persist in the racist practice of capitalizing "black" but not "white". Either both should be capitalized, or neither should.

But, even if the grades and MCAT scores are in some cases a little bit lower,

Significantly lower.

there is a need for more Black doctors, especially in a state like Ga., where over 30% of the population is Black.

I reject this idea that black patients should be seen by black doctors. Would you extend that to white doctors and white patients etc., or it is a one-way street, like most discourse about race?

And I do not think lowering academic standards for black med students is the way to go here. If you want more black doctors, start in grade schools. Reduce the achievement gap by actually lifting performance of black students instead of having lower standards for them. That would also require a change in culture. There is a lot of sense of entitlement, that "white America" owes black people special treatment.

Grades and MCAT scores don't determine if someone will be a great physician, regardless of ethnic background.

They do determine that to a great degree. Not alone, of course, but they are significant metrics.
And they are more objective (esp. MCAT which is not plagued by inconsistent course difficulty and grading among different colleges) and are harder to game than essays or extracurricular activities. They are therefore areas that students from less well off families can control more. Access to extracurriculars are often based on connections. Rich families can just pay a ghostwriter to write the personal statement and secondary essays for the students. But nobody can take the MCAT for him and her. Rich and poor, white or black or otherwise, they all have to sit their ass for eight hours in the test center and take the same test. That makes it a much fairer metric than others.

Compassion and keeping up to date with one's area of practice are far more important and sadly, there are too many providers who lack compassion and don't seem to keep up to date with the newest things in medicine. It's complicated.

It's hard to predict the former, and I see no reason to assume that compassion differs by race. As far as the latter, I would think that more academically minded people enjoy learning new things and that they therefore would be more inclined to keep up with developments in their field, and maybe even contribute to them.

In South Florida, when people want to find a doctor who's Black, they often end up contacting Adrienne Hibbert through her online website, Black Doctors of South Florida.

Anybody else find that kind of separatism concerning?

Hibbert says she got the idea for the website after she gave birth to her son 15 years ago. Her obstetrician at the time was white, and the suburban hospital outside Miami didn't feel welcoming to her as a Black woman pregnant with her first child.

"Did not feel welcoming". But was that because of anything the white doctor said or did or because of Hibbert's own prejudices?

"They had no singular photos of a Black woman and her Black child," Hibbert says. "I want someone who understands my background. I want someone who understands the foods that I eat. I want someone who understands my upbringing and things that my grandma used to tell me."

It seems to be the latter - it is Hibbert's prejudices, not the doctors that were making her uncomfortable.

I've also read that a good number of Black men don't like going to the doctor unless they can find a Black doctor because of racial discrimination.

Yes, but racial discrimination by whom? It seems these patients are discriminating on the basis of race, not the doctors.

You really don't understand. People want a doctor or NP who understands them and who doesn't discriminate against them due to their race or gender. it's as simple as that. If you bothered to do some DD, you would learn how Black patients have frequently been discriminated against by white doctors, especially when it comes to pain management. I'll help you out a little. bit.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483/

The present work examines beliefs associated with racial bias in pain management, a critical health care domain with well-documented racial disparities. Specifically, this work reveals that a substantial number of white laypeople and medical students and residents hold false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites and demonstrates that these beliefs predict racial bias in pain perception and treatment recommendation accuracy. It also provides the first evidence that racial bias in pain perception is associated with racial bias in pain treatment recommendations. Taken together, this work provides evidence that false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites continue to shape the way we perceive and treat black people—they are associated with racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment recommendations.
Keywords: racial bias, pain perception, health care disparities, pain treatment

Go to:​

ABSTRACT​

Black Americans are systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans. We examine whether this racial bias is related to false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites (e.g., “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s skin”). Study 1 documented these beliefs among white laypersons and revealed that participants who more strongly endorsed false beliefs about biological differences reported lower pain ratings for a black (vs. white) target. Study 2 extended these findings to the medical context and found that half of a sample of white medical students and residents endorsed these beliefs. Moreover, participants who endorsed these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient’s pain as lower and made less accurate treatment recommendations. Participants who did not endorse these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient’s pain as higher, but showed no bias in treatment recommendations. These findings suggest that individuals with at least some medical training hold and may use false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites to inform medical judgments, which may contribute to racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment.
A young man goes to the doctor complaining of severe pain in his back. He expects and trusts that a medical expert, his physician, will assess his pain and prescribe the appropriate treatment to reduce his suffering. After all, a primary goal of health care is to reduce pain and suffering. Whether he receives the standard of care that he expects, however, is likely contingent on his race/ethnicity.

You don’t have to be a person of color to have doctors under treat your pain or other symptoms. Just female. And it’s worse if you are a woman of color. Black and Native American women have the highest rates of maternal mortality.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Here lies your impasse to this discussion

Exactly. I view people as individuals, not mere ciphers for a racial or ethnic identity.
Discriminating in favor of blacks today is not fixing injustices of yesteryear. It is compounding one injustice by adding another, it is not fixing any injustice.

It’s not yesteryear - it’s happening right now. Of this there is no debate. The data is very clear.

I really think that this is the piece of the puzzle you are missing

1) The "evidence" is always disparate outcomes. That does not prove discrimination.

2) Yes, I'm sure there are racists. I'm sure there are racists of every group. The question should be whether there are enough of them to pose a substantial obstacle.

That's not it. Just one example here. If you google "racial discrimination" followed by "car loans" or "uni admission", "jobs" you'll see similar studies.

I invite Derec to read this as well and maybe do a 30 second search.

We can't have a conversation about DEI if one party doesn't believe that there was a problem before the concept was initiated.

Note what I just said--disparate outcomes do not prove discrimination. Your link cites two pieces of "evidence" for actual discrimination, everything else is a matter of disparate outcomes.

The first is from nearly 100 years ago. Irrelevant. Society was highly discriminatory back then, even if the discrimination had been intentional it wouldn't be surprising.

The second is what I've discussed repeatedly--the supposed "redlining" of neighborhoods in more modern times. I have not attempted to analyze this on a national basis but I repeat what I saw locally: The Occam's Razor answer is that bankers are looking at whether the mortgage is likely to be underwater a few years down the road. Your link lists the confounders they tested for, that's not on the list.

I see reams and reams of very low quality "evidence" for discrimination--if they have high quality stuff why are they not promoting it?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It’s been explained to you more than once in this thread that it is not discrimination to use more criteria than GPA and MCAT scores to admit students

Nobody is arguing against that. But race and ethnicity, nor gender, should be among those criteria.

and that the differences in scores are small and not predictive of who will make a good physician.

The differences are not small and they are predictive of med school performance.
The Validity of MCAT Scores in Predicting Students' Performance and Progress in Medical School: Results From a Multisite Study
Take this paper. I do not have access to the full text, only the abstract.

Sorry, there's a major confounder apparent in the abstract: Researchers examined data from 17 U.S. and Canadian MD-granting medical schools for 2016 and 2017 entrants who volunteered for the research and applied with scores from the current MCAT exam.

Seems pretty low value as the sample of those who volunteered is probably non-random.

IE you don’t like the results…,

Huh? The study supports my side. I'm just saying it's got a bad enough confounder that I don't think it's decent evidence.

Actually it doesn’t.

If it's predictive of med school performance you can't say the difference doesn't matter.

It's just experience has taught me that when faced with any sort of research showing a social effect look for confounders. There are usually some obvious ones. (Not just a matter of race. Look at all the things that are supposedly related to living longer. There are the real ones, but the vast majority are because the action excludes many of the sickest. Moderate alcohol consumption appears to have been found to be in that category recently--because it lumps the non-drinkers with the can't-drinkers.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You don’t have to be a person of color to have doctors under treat your pain or other symptoms. Just female. And it’s worse if you are a woman of color. Black and Native American women have the highest rates of maternal mortality.

While I do agree that women's symptoms tend to get dismissed there's the very real issue of what facility. An awful lot of it comes down to the quality of care they have access to, not whether doctors are treating them differently.

 

[Rhea]

I get so tired of the endless effort to discount and dismiss the data that does show discrimination and disparate outcomes and tries to make it NEVER about racism, (or sexism, or ablism,) under the assumption that racism doesn’t exist. That’s it’s all yesteryear, and none of that matters any more.


So tired of it.

That argument is the continuous sisyphean boulder that women and minorities spend our lives getting crushed by.

It’s disgusting and I watch you (several of you, and plenty of others outside of this forum) sit there and convince yourselves “from your experience” that all the data doesn’t mean what hundreds of analysts have found that it means.


Arguing that women are treated badly by doctors for some reason OTHER than that they are women.
That Black people lose out on mortgage and property equity for some reason that is NOT race.
That disabled people suffer job discrimination for some reason that ISN’T ablism.


Of course, of course. It’s like a broken fucking record. It’s always some elusive factor that can’t be fixed. NEVER is it bias. Never should bias be addressed. Never should bias be mitigated or counteracted.

So what if the OUTCOME is that minorities, women, marginalized groups are always the victims of this. So what if the ongoing disparities are never solved. As long as white guys never ever ever have to think that they are dwelling in a systemic bias that harms others but not them.


So predicatable. So privileged. So arrogant. So harmful. So cowardly.

You just keep on living in your bias bubble thinking none of it is ever worth fixing. And I’ll keep looking at the harmful effect your opinion has on real people, and know that you don’t wish to care about it.

 

[JohnG]

Here lies your impasse to this discussion

Exactly. I view people as individuals, not mere ciphers for a racial or ethnic identity.
Discriminating in favor of blacks today is not fixing injustices of yesteryear. It is compounding one injustice by adding another, it is not fixing any injustice.

It’s not yesteryear - it’s happening right now. Of this there is no debate. The data is very clear.

I really think that this is the piece of the puzzle you are missing

1) The "evidence" is always disparate outcomes. That does not prove discrimination.

2) Yes, I'm sure there are racists. I'm sure there are racists of every group. The question should be whether there are enough of them to pose a substantial obstacle.

That's not it. Just one example here. If you google "racial discrimination" followed by "car loans" or "uni admission", "jobs" you'll see similar studies.

I invite Derec to read this as well and maybe do a 30 second search.

We can't have a conversation about DEI if one party doesn't believe that there was a problem before the concept was initiated.

Note what I just said--disparate outcomes do not prove discrimination. Your link cites two pieces of "evidence" for actual discrimination, everything else is a matter of disparate outcomes.

The first is from nearly 100 years ago. Irrelevant. Society was highly discriminatory back then, even if the discrimination had been intentional it wouldn't be surprising.

The second is what I've discussed repeatedly--the supposed "redlining" of neighborhoods in more modern times. I have not attempted to analyze this on a national basis but I repeat what I saw locally: The Occam's Razor answer is that bankers are looking at whether the mortgage is likely to be underwater a few years down the road. Your link lists the confounders they tested for, that's not on the list.

I see reams and reams of very low quality "evidence" for discrimination--if they have high quality stuff why are they not promoting it?

One study that comes to mind is the 83 000 fake resumes the researchers sent out with white names, Hispanic names, black sounding names and different genders. I wouldn’t call discrimination against a potential employee a disparate outcome. Obvious the disparate outcome arises as this occurs over time a population. Of course there are other causes for disparate outcomes- and there are specific studies for these too. Generational wealth/poverty as already mentioned.

I will link the study if you’re interested