Can white doctors provide quality care to communities in which the racial/ethnic demographics are shifting dramatically One Fair360, formerly DiversityInc reader addresses this question in her passionate response to our article, Is There a Black, Latino Doctor in the House about Rutgers University’s ODASIS program. See what she had to say about cultural competency and diversity in healthcare. Her edited comment is below:
Comment: I feel the need to respond to the comment, “does this mean that white doctors do not provide good quality of care” and to the blatant sarcasm of the person who commented about Asian doctors. I did not come from a background of economic privilege, but I did become a doctor through a fantastic scholarship program (Navy). When I noticed the great disparity in the primary and secondary education that students receive in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and the incredibly low numbers of students of color applying to and being accepted by U.S. medical schools, I figured out the connection. There is great discrepancy in guidance, exposure and opportunity among students attending different schools geographically in this area, and I am sure that is true of any urban area.
I decided to address the pipelineif students are not exposed to opportunities outside their neighborhoods before it is “too late,” that window (or door) will be shut permanently. My biomedical science summer program for high school students is designed to be diversestudents come from public and private schools, D.C., Virginia, Maryland (and out of state), and come from nuclear or non-nuclear homes. All staff are volunteers. The students do all the same activities and have the same expectations. The dynamics are unbelievable. One of the recurrent comments we receive from the suburban students is that they had NO IDEA that students just like them living less than 10 miles away had to make decisions everyday that they never think of. For example, how many suburban kids whose next summer activity is sleep-away lacrosse camp have to decide whether they should use the $5 their foster mother gave them to take the metro to our hospital OR eat lunch (but not both) How much of society obsesses about single parent households when some of our students come from zero parent households and still have the drive to succeed
