# Help, I have a new job in the ER and it is making me prejudiced **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 29, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506 "2012-12-29T19:30:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506/241 "2012-12-30T22:41:02Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > But that’s _not_ buying liquor and cigarettes with food stamps. And “food stamps” don’t exist anymore in that format. You have a plastic EBT card, and you can’t use it to buy booze and cigs. You can use it to buy something allowed and trade/sell it for actual money to buy booze and cigs. Is that possible to do? Sure. It’s possible to sell drugs and stolen hubcaps, too, but we don’t say people are buying booze and cigs with hubcaps and weed, do we? No, we don’t. Actually the more common form of food stamp misappropriation is selling access to your card. You sell the actual card and give them your pin number, wait an appropriate amount of time, then report it lost/stolen and get a new one. In TN there is no reliable way of tracking how many times a client has ordered a new card, so this can go on for a while. (Former DHS counselor and client:eek:) ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506/242 "2012-12-30T22:45:54Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Our lawmakers should be revising the system so doctors aren’t compelled to lose money when they treat the poor. They should at least break even when providing treatment. > > If the only way to break even is to find a way to admit the patients overnight then they do the right thing by doing just that - blame the system that’s rigged that way, not those caught in the system. **What other profession is _expected_ to operate at a loss when providing needed services?** Motherhood? I keed, I keed ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506/243 "2012-12-30T23:39:20Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > You are really really stretching. She is “habitually” sippin? Yes? I’m not getting the confusion on this either, and my white friend and black friend just agreed that I’m the whitest person they know. It’s like asking for your go-to drink. I’m not drinking anything right now but if someone asks what I be drinking, probably because they’re about to pick up some drinks for us, I’ll say vodka Crystal Light (and then I’ll get defensive, because people always have something smart to say about my awesome drink). I would be shocked if someone asked what I be drinking, and I said nothing, and they didn’t take that to mean that I don’t drink. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506/244 "2012-12-30T23:51:18Z")
One factor in the feelings of the OP (and probably others who work at that ER) is that a significant percentage of ER visitors (especially the “frequent flyers”) are addicts/drug dependent types there to scam painkilling medication. That may skew the patient population on a racial basis. And whether or not you’re in pain, if you feel the need to score drugs you’re probably not going to give a rat’s ass about anyone but yourself (not that non-addicts seeking emergency care are always paragons of community spirit). \*"According to a national study of frequent use published in 2010 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, frequent users comprise 4.5 percent to 8 percent of all ER patients, yet account for 21 percent to 28 percent of all visits. And it’s taking its toll. In a nationwide poll of American College of Emergency Physicians last year, 91 percent of respondents said frequent users posed a problem for their facility. Eighty-three percent of respondents said they felt some degree of frustration — from emotional exhaustion to decreased feelings of personal accomplishment — after treating frequent users. Seventy-seven percent of doctors said they bore a bias against frequent users. “Every ER physician does the best they can for the patient whenever they come through. You have to believe that,” said survey author Jennifer Peltzer-Jones, a clinical psychologist and registered nurse in the department of emergency medicine at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital. But she cautioned that frequent use is “burning our physicians out.”\* > [@newcrasher](#): > > A quick google of my real name will show me protesting a David Duke rally. Deep cover, eh? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506/245 "2012-12-31T00:43:03Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > One factor in the feelings of the OP (and probably others who work at that ER) is that a significant percentage of ER visitors (especially the “frequent flyers”) are addicts/drug dependent types there to scam painkilling medication. That may skew the patient population on a racial basis. And whether or not you’re in pain, if you feel the need to score drugs you’re probably not going to give a rat’s ass about anyone but yourself (not that non-addicts seeking emergency care are always paragons of community spirit). > > \*"According to a national study of frequent use published in 2010 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, frequent users comprise 4.5 percent to 8 percent of all ER patients, yet account for 21 percent to 28 percent of all visits. > > And it’s taking its toll. > > In a nationwide poll of American College of Emergency Physicians last year, 91 percent of respondents said frequent users posed a problem for their facility. > > Eighty-three percent of respondents said they felt some degree of frustration — from emotional exhaustion to decreased feelings of personal accomplishment — after treating frequent users. > > Seventy-seven percent of doctors said they bore a bias against frequent users. > > “Every ER physician does the best they can for the patient whenever they come through. You have to believe that,” said survey author Jennifer Peltzer-Jones, a clinical psychologist and registered nurse in the department of emergency medicine at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital. > > But she cautioned that frequent use is “burning our physicians out.”\*Deep cover, eh? :dubious: Um, that had nothing to do with race other than your comments. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506/246 "2012-12-31T03:13:41Z")
Enough. I just got back from a very pleasant afternoon and have read this entire thread. I’m not going to single anyone out for warnings or notes – I’m just going to lock this thread. The OP was asking about how to deal with feelings arising from his job – or was till y’all drove him off with the world’s longest hijack about Ebonic grammar. If anyone needs to call anyone else a racist, go do it in the Pit. If anyone wants to discuss whether there is more than one dialect of black English, do it in GQ. If anyone wants to discuss whether it’s inherently mocking or disrespectful to misquote another person’s dialect, do it in IMHO. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-i-have-a-new-job-in-the-er-and-it-is-making-me-prejudiced/645506.md?page=12)