3 ms·

I agree with you on all counts except I do want to point out that you're wrong about this one: - Want your doctor to take your concerns seriously and prescribe

I agree with you on all counts except I do want to point out that you're wrong about this one: - Want your doctor to take your concerns seriously and prescribe the most appropriate medicine for your condition? Better to be Asian. Being a biochemist I know that my dad was given a statin drug that should typically be at 1/4 strength for Asians. I came to later find out that I am homozygous for an allele which makes exercise more painful if you take that statin. Ironically my dad didn't die of heart disease (he never had high blood pressure) but died of diabetes and lack of exercise instead. Anyways, the medical field is broken because by policy we want to treat everyone the same but in some ways biology skews racist.

sudosteph 7y ago
That's an edge case on a particular drug caused by doctors assuming "white as default", which is it's own issue that often does affect Asians, black people, and other minorities too. The problem I was talking about was more about how doctors are less likely to prescribe things like pain medicine or ADHD meds to black people because of presumed criminality and stereotypes. A good portion of doctors legitimately claim that they believe the myth that black people have higher pain tolerance than people of other races: https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-we-fail-black-patient... Black people can also have a problem where doctors assume they are lying about symptoms or being non-compliant with their treatment plan, so if they complain of it not working or of side effects, doctors often don't listen and update the plan of care accordingly. Even in something as straightforward as sharing symptoms of heart disease, doctors were less likely to take their concerns seriously and recommend the necessary diagnostic follow up: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=N+Engl+J+Med&title=The+effect+of+race+and+sex+on+physicians%27+recommendations+for+cardiac+catheterization&author=KA+Schulman&author=JA+Berlin&author=W+Harless&volume=340&publication_year=1999&pages=618-26&pmid=10029647& https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=N+Engl+J+M... In your example, it's a wash. But in my examples, being Asian is still an advantage over being black.

sudosteph 7y ago

That's an edge case on a particular drug caused by doctors assuming "white as default", which is it's own issue that often does affect Asians, black people, and other minorities too. The problem I was talking about was more about how doctors are less likely to prescribe things like pain medicine or ADHD meds to black people because of presumed criminality and stereotypes. A good portion of doctors legitimately claim that they believe the myth that black people have higher pain tolerance than people of other races: https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-we-fail-black-patient... Black people can also have a problem where doctors assume they are lying about symptoms or being non-compliant with their treatment plan, so if they complain of it not working or of side effects, doctors often don't listen and update the plan of care accordingly. Even in something as straightforward as sharing symptoms of heart disease, doctors were less likely to take their concerns seriously and recommend the necessary diagnostic follow up: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=N+Engl+J+Med&title=The+effect+of+race+and+sex+on+physicians%27+recommendations+for+cardiac+catheterization&author=KA+Schulman&author=JA+Berlin&author=W+Harless&volume=340&publication_year=1999&pages=618-26&pmid=10029647& https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=N+Engl+J+M... In your example, it's a wash. But in my examples, being Asian is still an advantage over being black.