Seeing Patients : A Surgeon’s Story of Race and Medical Bias, With a New Preface

Gus White grew up on the wrong side of the color line in Jim Crow Tennessee, then became the first black medical student at Stanford and a top surgeon at Harvard. Throughout his career he has witnessed unconscious bias against nonwhite patients. __Seeing Patients__ shares these sobering stories and outlines concrete solutions to medical inequity. "A powerful and extraordinarily important book." —James P. Comer, MD "A marvelous personal journey that illuminates what it means to care for people of all races, religions, and cultures. The story of this man becomes the aspiration of all those who seek to minister not only to the body but also to the soul." —Jerome Groopman, MD, author of How Doctors Think Growing up in Jim Crow–era Tennessee and training and teaching in overwhelmingly white medical institutions, Gus White witnessed firsthand how prejudice works in the world of medicine. While race relations have changed dramatically since then, old ways of thinking die hard. In this blend of memoir and manifesto, Dr. White draws on his experience as a resident at Stanford Medical School, a combat surgeon in Vietnam, and head orthopedic surgeon at one of Harvard's top teaching hospitals to make sense of the unconscious bias that riddles medical care, and to explore how we can do better in a diverse twenty-first-century America. "Gus White is many things—trailblazing physician, gifted surgeon, and freedom fighter. Seeing Patients demonstrates to the world what many of us already knew—that he is also a compelling storyteller. This powerful memoir weaves personal experience and scientific research to reveal how the enduring legacy of social inequality shapes America's medical field. For medical practitioners and patients alike, Dr. White offers both diagnosis and prescription." —Jonathan L. Walton, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard University "A tour de force—a compelling story about race, health, and conquering inequality in medical care...Dr. White has a uniquely perceptive lens with which to see and understand unconscious bias in health care...His journey is so absorbing that you will not be able to put this book down." —Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., author of All Deliberate Speed

If you’re going to have a heart attack, an organ transplant, or a joint replacement, here’s the key to getting the very best medical care: be a white, straight, middle-class male. This book by a pioneering black surgeon takes on one of the few critically important topics that haven’t figured in the heated debate over health care reform—the largely hidden yet massive injustice of bias in medical treatment.

Growing up in Jim Crow–era Tennessee and training and teaching in overwhelmingly white medical institutions, Gus White witnessed firsthand how prejudice works in the world of medicine. And while race relations have changed dramatically, old ways of thinking die hard. In Seeing Patients White draws upon his experience in startlingly different worlds to make sense of the unconscious bias that riddles medical treatment, and to explore what it means for health care in a diverse twenty-first-century America.

White and co-author David Chanoff use extensive research and interviews with leading physicians to show how subconscious stereotyping influences doctor-patient interactions, diagnosis, and treatment. Their book brings together insights from the worlds of social psychology, neuroscience, and clinical practice to define the issues clearly and, most importantly, to outline a concrete approach to fixing this fundamental inequity in the delivery of health care.

This book uses the story of one of the authors, Gus White, as a way to talk about unconscious biases and their consequences to the medical profession and beyond. White is an orthopedic surgeon, who grew up in Tennessee under Jim Crow, went to Brown, and was the only black student at Stanford Medical School. He was the first black chief resident at Yale, the only black surgeon in Vietnam, and was the first black chief of service in a Harvard teaching hospital. His life spans an enormous change in American race relations, and he has many eye opening stories to tell. His description of his early years in an extremely segregated and racist society now reads like something from another world. White and Chanoff want to use the autobiographical approach of this book to show how great the disparities still are, and make the case for “culturally competent" medical training, in a way that is more vivid and memorable than a research review or policy paper. The book looks at White’s life, but always with an eye to what moved him to the idea of equality in medicine and problems of disparities in medicine "Growing up in Jim Crow-era Tennessee and training and teaching in overwhelmingly white medical institutions, Gus White witnessed firsthand how prejudice works in the world of medicine. While race relations have changed dramatically since then, old ways of thinking die hard. In this blend of memoir and manifesto Dr. White draws on his experience as a resident at Stanford Medical School, a combat surgeon in Vietnam, and head orthopedic surgeon at one of Harvard's top teaching hospitals to make sense of the unconscious bias that riddles medical care, and to explore how we can do better in a diverse twenty-first century America."--Page 4 de la couverture It takes a village : Memphis Scrub nurse Becoming a doctor : Stanford Becoming a surgeon : Yale Combat surgeon : death and our common humanity Getting toward equal : Sweden A man ain't nothin' but a man Orthopedic chief : Harvard Diagnosis and treatment : the subconscious at work Health-care disparities : race Health-care disparities : women, Hispanics, elderly, gay Culturally competent care. "Gus White grew up on the wrong side of the color line in Jim Crow Tennessee, then became the first black medical student at Stanford and a top surgeon at Harvard. Throughout his career he has witnessed unconscious bias against nonwhite patients. Seeing Patients shares these sobering stories and outlines concrete solutions to medical inequity."-- Provided by publisher If you're going to have a heart attack, or an organ transplant, here's the key to getting the best medical care: be a white, straight, middle-class male. This book takes on one of the few critically important topics that haven't figured in the heated debate over health care reform - the hidden yet massive injustice of bias in medical treatment. " ... Use[s] extensive research and interviews with leading physicians to show how subconscious stereotyping influences doctor-patient interactions, diagnosis, and treatment"--Publisher description