My dentist referred me to an oral surgeon named Dr. Nii (pronounced ‘knee’). He stated several times that she was very ‘professional’, stressing the word. I wondered what that was about until I met her. She could have passed for 15!
She was very professional.
I was going to start a pit thread about this, but I think I can keep it clean enough for MPSIMS.
We’ve had the problem with Jr. High kids crying “racist” where my daughter is concerned, when it’s not true. Example:
Kid 1: So, K, would you date X?
K: No.
Kid 1: Why not?
K: He’s black.
Kids (all): K is a racist!!!
We talked to her. She was merely expressing a preference - like she prefers chocolate ice cream to strawberry. To her, there wasn’t anything wrong with student X, she merely prefers to date white people…
…stupid-ass Jr. High kids…
Well, in terms of the general discussion in this thread, i can’t believe that anyone thinks it’s appropriate nowdays to “warn” someone about the race of the doctor they are being sent to. A doctor is a doctor, for fucks sake.
And, even if this sort of thing were acceptable, i can’t believe that anyone who’s spent more than about three minutes in Baltimore would feel the need to tell you that someone was black.
News flash people: two-thirds of the population of this city is black. Black doctors, black teachers, black businesspeople, black bus drivers, black lawyers, black cops, we’ve got 'em all. Hell, even as white a place as Johns Hopkins has some African Americans on the faculty.
If anything, simple percentages suggest that, in Baltimore, it would be more logical to warn you if the person you’re going to see is white.
But was she the doctor who says Ni? Was a shrubbery somehow involved? 
Except that that perception is still rooted in racism.
It is not true that “standards must necessarily be lower.” Most medical schools, like most law schools, have more qualified applicants than they can ever admit to the program. Affirmative action does not mean that these schools take people who would otherwise be ineligible to enter the medical or legal professions. Nor does it mean that candidates who, once accepted, fail to meet the standards of the profession are allowed to pass just because they’re black. There is no reason whatsoever to think that a black doctor is likely to be any more or less competent than a white doctor.
Isn’t that just a description of a person? And did you comlain about the use of the word ‘colored’ or the word ‘girl’ ?
Would you also complain if you were directed to the “tall red hared man downstairs” or the “plump middle aged lady” ?
On the OP, something nasty in me would like a conversation to go like this.
Nurse:“Well mr. X the surgen who will be treating you is black, I hope that isn’t a problem?”
Mr X. “Well actually it is a problem, I don’t want a black surgeon”
Nurse:“Very well. could you fill out this form please”
passes organ donation form to mr X.
Mr X : ???
Nurse: “Well you’ll be dead by this evening, we could make use of some of your organs.”
To me, they’re both pejorative. Her melanin status should be irrelevant, and I’m quite sure that someone who works in a medical office would be an adult woman, not a “girl.” (Would you be taken aback by being told to see “the colored boy” in the same circumstance?)
What’s wrong with “Go downstairs and ask for Jeanie”? Whether the receptionist is a black woman or a tall red-haired man, wouldn’t it behoove the person giving the directions to bother to find out her co-workers’ NAMES, instead of just pigeonholing them by description?
Exactly.
Or even just, “Go downstairs and see the receptionist.” The very nature of a receptionist’s job is to receive people, and for that reason the receptionist’s desk is usually in a fairly obvious position.
I just quit my Indian doctor. I’m sure he’s qualified and I didn’t have all that much trouble understanding him, tho I did have to ask him to repeat thing a couple of times. Still, the appointment was lacking in professionalism, I thought.
When he was listening to my heart, he held the stethoscope at arm’s length, and that was as close as he ever got to me. Bear in mind, I was fully clothed, including a sweater because it was winter and I was chilly. So there was no chance of accidentally brushing up against anything. He had me pull up my pant legs and push down my socks, ( 
) and that’s about all the covered skin he saw. I mentioned, in passing, that I’d had some back pain. He didn’t touch my back. He didn’t ask to see me move. He didn’t ask anything, but he wrote me a prescription for pain killers (which I threw away.)
I pretty much decided then and there that I wasn’t going back to him. And I admit, I was a tad miffed because when I was told his name upon making the initial appointment, I thought I was seeing a woman doctor, but that wasn’t his fault. Still, the man had zero bedside manner, and honestly, I felt like he was afraid of me. So he’s history. I see a new guy in a different practice in a couple of weeks. Hope he works out better. Finding doctors in this area who take new patients is a real challenge.
Wow, I feel really lucky to have found the doctor I did right when I moved to Florida. I went to the Student Health Center for my routine pap and saw an Indian woman. I was relieved because I’m more comfortable with a woman OB/GYN. She is the best doctor I’ve ever been to. Very personable, and answers any and all of my questions in a very non-judgemental manner. I like her so much that I request to see her every time I go to the Health Center. So there are some really great Indian doctors out there, I found one. 
I hope you aren’t going to generalize your experience with this doctor to all Indian doctors. That would be ridiculous.
I don’t like white doctors because they 're uncoordinated and don’t have butts.
I don’t like black doctors because they do that scary swiveling, cobra neck thing.
I don’t like Asian doctors because they eat with sticks and wear slippers everywhere.
I don’t like Indian doctors because they smell like curry and talk like Apu.
Really, I don’t understand why you should get on a pass on discriminating against Indians. Yes, I know you’re Indian, but what you’ve posted is unfair and bigoted. How would you like if someone said they wouldn’t go to your place of business because you’re Indian, and we all know that Indians are “blank”.
If you have children and one of them works hard to become a doctor, you’re going to hope that other people will give them a fair chance in life.
If there was only one person or any person at the reception or whatever could help then it was indeed unnecessary to specify which person in particular. But if the speaker needed to refer to a particular person and did not know there name, it becomes necessary to differentiate the person by appearence.
Refering to the person as a girl is inaccurate and so could be innapropriate. Maybe instead of colored she could say dark skinned, African American (if she was african american) could be used, but the person above may well not know what the person she was refering to was wearing, was called, or any other clear differentiation with other people bellow who aren’t able to help.
Note the ‘coloured girl downstares’ was not (necessarily) a receptionist, it was the receptionist that made the supposedly rude comment. Perhapse downstares were three people a short male Jewish Neurologist, an overweight Mexican male cross-dressing Neurologist , and a female African American Neurologist only the third of which could help the poster ?
When I was young, a doctor suggested my mother take me to a new, local specialist (regarding my poison ivy allergy story). The specialist’s name was, and I kid you not, Dr. Fidel Castro. It was not necessary to mention he was also Cuban.
Sadly, I heard a few years later he changed his office practice name to his middle name - I think to Dr. Ernesto Castro - and dropped Fidel. I guess he either got tired of the jokes, or felt it was bad for business.
But oddly, depite him practicing in a lilly-white community, I don’t recall anyone ever having an issue with him being non-white. Just the heeheehee re: his name.
“Doctor ‘Che’ Castro” is almost funnier. He should have just gone by “Red.”
Or, because it was a professional office, the receptionist could learn the names of the people to whom she might need to refer. Or, at the very least, not refer to black people as “colored” (Welcome to the 21st century!) or adult women as “girls.” I’m quite certain that she would not have directed the patient to “see the white boy downstairs.”
There are also the options of referring to “the office manager” or even “the woman at the Records desk” if she can’t be arsed to learn people’s names or learn not to see a person only as a member of a certain race. (See “She’s a beautician and he’s a spic” above.)
“See Dr. So-and-So.” (Surely the receptionist should know the names of the doctors in the facility, or at least have a directory?)
Sorry, Bippy, but I just don’t see any justification for referring to anyone as “the colored girl” in polite society.
Not at all. Had he not acted like he didn’t want to get near me, I’d have hung in there. But between that and the immediate reaction to throw pills at me turned me off him. I guess my post wasn’t all that clear. The only relevance being Indian had was the accent issue, and I’ve got a pretty good ear, so I could have dealt with that.
Frankly, I miss Dr. Doogie (not his real name, and never called that to his face) - we had one family practitioner who looked like he was about 12 years old, but he was one of the best doctors I’d dealt with. I really hated to lose him when we moved.
[hijack of my own thread]
I went to see Dr. J. He’s a good guy. Straight forward, no bullshit, no sugar coating, empathetic ear AND gentle with my tender bits. I believe my nurse, Patsy about his surgical skills, too. He told me that he’s done hundreds of the procedure I’ll have next month. He said he loves doing this kind of surgery because it provides almost immediate relief for the patient, and makes him the hero. (I believe I heard our beloved QtM say that about a similar procedure). I couldn’t ask for a better surgeon.
However, I am not so keen on his assistant. I was there when she scheduled the surgery, and covertly joked about my weight to the scheduling person. “Oh, I’m guessing it will be prone instead of lithotomy… giggle.” HEY LADY- I KNOW SOME MEDICAL TERMS, AND I DO REALIZE THAT YOU JUST INSULTED ME." Bitch.
So I turned off my happy face and stared her down with icy eyes as she gave me the pre-op stuff I am to do. And before I left, I turned to her and said, “You know, I came here because I’m in excrutiating pain. If I thought I could live with it, I wouldn’t be here. It’s a very embarrassing situation.” I hope she got the drift.
All I know is that they’d better have me completely under before she (or any staff) goes making rude jokes about me.
[/hijack]
For those of us not up on the medical terminology, would you explain what all this means?