You are mistaken.
newcrasher,
The only thing I can suggest is to ignore the background / ethnicity of those who piss you off and take them for what they are:
Ignorant, nasty, entitled assholes piss you off. In all shapes, colors & sizes.
There. Now you are cool, and normal.
err…ok. do tell.
Damn white people. newscrasher, you’re making the rest of us look bad.
You start with your list of qualifiers which, as others have pointed out rings of the “Why, some of my best friends are…!” only to end with the impression that you’ve cast your arms skyward to ask, “I’ve tried my best to give these people a chance…!!!”
You’ve chosen a remarkably small sample size to cast judgment upon an entire segment of the population with your:
It is to suggest that your first real, extended experience with the black folk has confirmed a sneaking suspicion that you’ve kept deep within all this time. To wit, “They just ain’t no damn good.”
I contend that all racism, at its root, is a manifestation of ignorance, anger or fear.
In your case, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt in opting for the first one.
I believe you’re obligated to courteously address every complaint. I don’t believe you’re obligated to continue to treat patients after determining that their complaint does not constitute an emergency.
So although you have addressed my ignorance, you have not treated it. But I’m always willing to learn. I won’t even ask you for a cite; I’ll just ask for the name of your city, and do my own research on the local laws — unless you are claiming that you are following a policy voluntarily adopted by your hospital.
As for federal law, you seem to be clearly wrong:
a) Medical screening requirement
In the case of a hospital that has a hospital emergency department, if any individual (whether or not eligible for benefits under this subchapter) comes to the emergency department and a request is made on the individual’s behalf for examination or treatment for a medical condition, the hospital must provide for an appropriate medical screening examination within the capability of the hospital’s emergency department, including ancillary services routinely available to the emergency department, to determine whether or not an emergency medical condition (within the meaning of subsection (e)(1) of this section) exists.
Perhaps I should clarify: By whom do you believe you are required to treat whoever shows up? Because the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act only requires you to treat emergency cases. Not birth control, or other non-emergency care. Now, if it is the policy of your hospital to treat everyone, that is something else altogether. But the federal law does not.
I feel your pain. I met a guy in the Bahamas, unfortunately as we both gave a little Bahamian boy fruitless mouth-to-mouth for thirty minutes between wiping away vomit, waiting for a ridiculously slow ambulance. We became fast friends, and visited occasionally, despite the 500 miles between us. He moved from volunteer fireman to Jersey cop during a stretch we were not in much contact, and I was shocked at the racism I detected on our next visit. I asked him what was bothering him and why he would occasionally slip and say awful things that would’ve never passed his lips before, and he was ashamed to admit the job had exposed him to nothing but the worst of people and poisoned his formerly nonracist mind. It’s unfortunate, but it does happen. I wish I had been closer to him, to call him on this when these thoughts surfaced, but he was surrounded by those that already shared these racist thoughts. You still have a chance, OP. You can see that you’re not thinking right. This shows you can still stop this from getting worse. I lost my friend to this awful mindset. Don’t let it take you. The fact that you’re talking about it here is good.
A more reader-friendly article about what is, and is not, required of ERs:
Although it is an opinion piece, it is full of cites to credible sources.
The edit window closed before I could add that the article contradicts not only the OP’s premise of ERs having to treat all comers, but his claim that the treatment is essentially free. As the article notes, unless someone is totally indigent, he will eventually pay (even if he had a bona fide medical emergency), as hospitals are not shy about garnishing wages, attaching bank accounts, or slapping a lien on future earnings or property sales.
Next topic: buying cigarettes and liquor with food stamps.
Newcrasher, I empathize with your perceived prejudice that you’ve developed. I had a similar experience when I began working for a Domino’s Pizzas in Prince George’s (PG) County, MD and in Fairfax Co., VA.
PG had once been 95% white up to the 1970’s; it also had had a blacks-only high school, where all of the county’s black teens were bused up to about 1964. But over the years, the population ethnicity had shifted. Black families that lived in Washington, DC had moved to neighboring PG, and the whites that lived there then moved to counties further out: Anne Arundel, Calvert, and Charles.
The first Domino’s that I worked at was the one closest to my new home in Upper Marlboro. I only worked there a couple of weeks. In my short time there, I started to acquire a prejudice: about 95% of the time, when the customer was black I got no tip (I am white, BTW). And the tips I did get were piddling. My last night at that store, I had 18 deliveries, and a total of $1.50 in tips.
I then began working at a Domino’s further north, at the invitation of a friend that had just been assigned as manager of the Largo store. The population was still mostly black, but my tips did improve to about $1.50-$2.00 per order.
After a few months there, I got a new day job in Virginia, and it was difficult getting back to Maryland to work the dinner rush in time. So I started working at another Domino’s that was still in Team Washington, but located in McLean, VA. My tips went up greatly, about $3-4 per delivery. The population was mostly white.
But, here is the realization I had: the tips were a direct relation to the customer’s income level, and not by race, which is easy to make without thinking. Now, there was a correlation just using the Upper Marlboro and McLean information. But correlation is not causality. It was simply that poorer people couldn’t afford to tip well, if at all. I also got stiffed by white people in Upper Marlboro, got tipped well by blacks in McLean. And a strange twist in all of this: some rich people in McLean (living in McMansions) didn’t tip at all, when they obviously could afford it.
It’s this type of thinking, assigning behavior strictly by race, that is a slippery slope to organized, institutional racism that has plagued various groups for millennia. For example, non-Jewish Europeans noticed that Jews operated several successful businesses, and came to the conclusion that Jews were taking all the wealth of the economy. They overlooked the Jews that didn’t have wealth.
Thats the thing! By the time someone has triaged, assessed and processed the guy, you might as well do the test/write the script/give the advice and send him on his way. Easier than making him mad by telling him you arent going to see him. And how do you know its not an bona fide medical problem unless you examine him? “Chill bumps” could have been a symptom of any number of things. One lady brought her developmentally challenged daughter in at 0430 for “sore nipples”.:smack: Whaddayagunnadu?
And if the patient has no job, no bank account, and owns no property, how, exactly, will the hospital collect? Have you met any poor people dependent on government assistance? They aren’t terribly concerned about their credit rating.
And if the patient has no job, no bank account, and owns no property, how, exactly, will the hospital collect? Have you met any poor people dependent on government assistance? They aren’t terribly concerned about their credit rating.
As for liquor and cigarettes, food stamps are frequently sold and traded.
I was pretty sure I had used “totally indigent” correctly, but you sounded so exasperated, I thought I’d better look it up, just to make sure this wasn’t one of those cases where I’ve used a word all my life, and didn’t realize that I was using it incorrectly.
Nope, it means exactly what I thought it meant.
Do you know what it means?
It sounds like you think “indigent” is rare. We’re all aware that the unemployed and uninsured rely on ERs for treatment of all maladies. Makes the news frequently, big talking point during election years. What the OP describes is common around the country. He just happens to work in an area convenient to inner city poor. In my region, inner city poor and rural poor clog up the ER with minor complaints, and raise hell when someone they perceive has been given favorable treatment is called back.
Newscrasher, I’m a nurse and can totally see where you’re coming from. I try to counteract my creeping prejudice thoughts with remembering all the white people I come across that are druggie tweakers, child neglecters, and general bitches. Since you work in the ER, maybe the black people that are prone to dickishness prove it from the start, and the white people wait until they are admitted and on the inpatient units before they let their bitchiness/assholery out. You don’t get to see that part.
You be trippin’, girl. Or something.
They sound sexy
RN with 25 years experience chiming in here with a few thoughts:
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Have rarely worked ER, but I have taken many patients from ER as admits. I’ve worked in ghetto (oh, sorry, “urban”) black hospitals and white suburban hospitals. My verdict? Give me the ghetto hospital EVERY TIME. Underprivileged minorities may cuss me out upon occasion and god knows they’re non-compliant with their medical regimes (especially diabetes care and kidney failure pts, not to mention the hypertensives and the CHFers), but I’d say that 90% of the time, the “urban” hospital patient populations were courteous, compliant and cooperative while inpatients. As opposed to white suburban world where the privilege is miles thick, the tone dismissive toward “the help” (you know, any health care professional who is NOT a doctor), and the attitude petty and peevish in the extreme. I’d much rather be cussed out by someone with some honest anger than patronized by someone with a huge sense of entitlement. Clue: a whole LOT of white people treat service industry employees very badly.
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We all have some bit of racism/racist attitudes within us. It’s human nature to be leery of anything we perceive as “other”. Best thing to do is recognize that within ourselves and don’t let it take over your POV. IOW, don’t buy into your own confirmation bias. You seriously think that your ER is somehow different in this respect than any other ER in America? You’re dreaming. White, black, Hispanic, Asian-doesn’t matter. Those who MUST frequent ER for any medical care are overwhelmingly poor. THAT is the true culprit here, not skin color or minority culture.
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The more you try to defend your non-racist bona fides, the more racist you’re going to appear. Another clue phone: many (or at least some) people are not going to believe you are without prejudice for see #2.
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It can be very hard to hang onto your empathy in health care in any area of it. Sounds to me like you also need to find a way to distance yourself from the pain you see daily, but without closing yourself off entirely. It’s a delicate balance and a lot of people don’t do it well. I suggest using your time off to do things that feed you spiritually and emotionally (like maybe don’t volunteer at a soup kitchen every time you’re off) so that you can replenish. I garden. Lots of others paint, knit, raise animals, grow vegetables, rock climb.
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Lastly, put yourself in their shoes. Limited education, deep financial insecurity, unforgiving culture, profound ignorance as to how their own body works (this is true everywhere, in my experience, in health care), paucity of resources and/or support network. Honestly, how patient, kind, considerate and cooperative do you think you’d be in the same circumstances? Hell, most people here can’t handle it if their damned website takes too long to load.