This video was produced by the new organization, Counterweight. The theme: “I see our superficial differences, but they will not divide us.”
On Celebrating Color-Blindness
This video was produced by the new organization, Counterweight. The theme: “I see our superficial differences, but they will not divide us.”
Very powerful video. She is right, metaphorical color blindness is the goal. Gene pool is important to physicians because, for example, a patient complaining of illness that jumps from system to system is more likely to consider systemic lupus if the patient is of African descent, while that’s a lesser concern for patients of European descent.
Other personal aspects that are irrelevant to an individual’s worth are of interest to physicians. Are you Jewish? I must allow for the possibility of Tay-Sachs in your children. Are you Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican, and get sick every Sunday afternoon? I want to consider gluten intolerance. Gay? I need to think about a youthful history of hyper-promiscuity to test for later stage syphilis. None of these ever caused me to turn away a patient, to treat one patient with less dignity than another, but they are reality, and I can’t ignore them into invisibility. That, my friend, would be racist.