“When the Doctor no longer looks like You, White Boy.”

When the Doctor Doesn’t Look Like You

The full column should have been titled “When the Doctor no longer looks like You, White Boy.”. Women and non-white people have long contended with doctors who don’t look like them. What is more, white male doctors have long dismissed symptoms, in American women and African-American patients, which the doctors take seriously enough for white male patients.

Other than the overt racism and sexism inherent in patients and colleagues discriminating against non white male doctors, there is the covert racism and sexism in taking this issue seriously only when the affected patients are white males (as the title of the full column implies).