Professor says views may fool, quick individuals to avoid seeking healthcare
According to a professor at the University of Montana, alleged racial bias is not the same as actual racism, but the health industry treats it in the interest of people.
What If Perceived Discrimination in Medicine Is n’t the Same as Real Discrimination, writes Stewart Justman, a professor emeritus of liberal studies at the University of Montana, in the article” What If Real Discrimination Is n’t the Same as Perceived Discrimination”?
The article contends that the latest medical literature frequently views actual racial bias as the same thing.
” In reality, however, the supposed signals of inherent bias in the medical encounter are very confusing, too uninterpretable, and very conflicting to be discerned with any certainty by anyone”, the article states. What is apparent is that if a person’s perception of bias causes them to avoid care, the same can happen if they are wrong about their perceptions.
” Literature that assumes that medicine is polluted with concealed bias supports misconceptions, foments trust, and sends the incautious concept that black people can expect bad treatment”, according to the abstract.
Justman claimed in a new message that he wrote the article after finding a “glaring lack of criticism of the medical literature of the theory that medicine itself is a bigoted institution.”
He has written a number of novels and scholarly papers about medicine, covering subjects such as health overdiagnosis, cancer, drugs, vaccination, and the placebo effect.
His most recent article addresses the idea that “minority patients have a kind of sixth sense that enables them to perceive this racism accurately.”
” To me, each of these claims—that medicine is racist from the roots up, that minority patients have a sixth sense, that perceived racism IS racism—needs to be subjected to critical scrutiny”, Justman told The Fix.
In the journal article, he wrote,” As uncontroversial as the nonidentity of perception and reality ought to be, many appear to believe that this principle should be waived in at least one instance, that of racial discrimination”.
The distinction between real and alleged discrimination should be respected, not blurred on principle, according to the article, especially at a time when allegations of discrimination are magnified by the traffickers of news and opinion.
However, he wrote that” there seems to be no behavioral characteristic that is too minor to be a sign of bias.”
The article cited the Institute of Medicine’s 2003 report” Unequal Treatment”, which argued even “reduced eye contact” and an “increased rate of blinking” by healthcare workers could be signs of bias toward ethnic and racial minority patients.
In some cases, perceived racism may just be a doctor who has a” cold” bedside manner, Justman wrote.
Patients will avoid seeking treatment, he wrote, one of the effects of racial discrimination in medicine that is frequently raised as a concern.
His article cited a 2008 study about racial/ethnic discrimination and diabetes management in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, which is cited as” as evidence of the’systemic ‘ racism of American medicine.”
However, only 4 percent of diabetes patients in the study, 26 percent of whom were black or Hispanic, said they were” treated unfairly or disrespectfully because of race or ethnicity” by healthcare workers, Justman wrote.
No bias was found because, according to the article,” white and nonwhite patients adhered at the same rates to recommended procedures for diabetes management.” ” … among Whites, 89.4 %, 71.1 %, 73.5 %, and 87.1 % reported HbA1c, foot exam, eye exam, and blood pressure tests, respectively. Correspondingly, among non Whites the estimates were 88.7 %, 74.9 %, 74.4 %, and 90.6 %, respectively”, the article stated.
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Justman claimed that his ideas are contentious because they criticize” an entire body of literature” on racism and health care.
” As I mention in the article, the founding document of the’ anti-racist’ medical literature, the Institute of Medicine’s Unequal Treatment, has been cited over 10, 000 times. This report equates perceived and real discrimination, though its arguments are poor”, he said.
When asked if he had received criticism for the article, he responded to The Fix that he had not yet but that he anticipates it.
A spokesperson for Do No Harm, a medical watchdog organization that opposes “identity politics” in healthcare, said Justman’s article makes a critically important point.
Research director Ian Kingsbury stated in a recent email that “perceived discrimination is not necessarily real discrimination.” According to one study, “interpersonal perception is a function of the perceiver as the perceived,” and it is obviously related to neuroticism.
In academia, racism and healthcare have become a significant research topic.
The National Institutes of Health spent more than$ 297 million to fund scholars ‘ studies on the topic in 2022 alone, The Fix reported. So far this year, the taxpayer-funded entity has spent$ 136 million on racism-focused studies, according to a recent Fix analysis.
In addition, significant medical organizations have also started initiatives specifically addressing the problem. The American Nurses Association, for example, has a National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing.
The Fix over the past week sent two emails asking about Justman’s article and concerns about mis-perceived racial discrimination in medical research, but neither the ANA nor the NIH responded.
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IMAGE: University of Montana, Journal of Controversial Ideas
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