Race and gender issues can influence medical treatment as many researchers have shown. The study by Benjamins and Whitman (2014), for example, showed that ethnic and racial discrimination is found in health care settings and results in health care services being limited to certain groups. The study surveyed 1700 individuals of white, black, Mexican, and Puerto Rican descent and found that 1/4th of respondents stated that they had experienced health care discrimination, and the skew showed that the discrimination was race-related. The types of discrimination cited by the respondents included not receiving the care they required, and not receiving quality of care.
Another study, this one by Grace, Kara, Kennedy and McDonald (2014), found that racial disparities exist in pediatric kidney transplantation. The study took place in New Zealand and focused on what types of patients were most likely to be receive a kidney transplant before others in the same need. The sample consisted of 215 patients undergoing renal replacement therapy and the findings showed that the highest percentage of patients to receive the needed transplant were Asians and Europeans while Pacific and Maori patients were only half as likely as Europeans to receive the same transplant. In other words, there was a clear racial and ethnic bias in terms of which patients were administered to first in this part of the world.
Many other studies exist that have examined the impact of racism and gender discrimination in health care. It is a problem because medical professionals have an obligation to treat people fairly without bias no matter what their race, gender or sexual orientation. This is part of their Hippocratic Oath. Whenever bias plays a role in determining the extent to which health care will be received, it is objectionable. A good example is the Tuskegee Experiments, in which black patients were not treated for syphilis because health researchers wanted to monitor the effect of the disease on the human body over time. This was cruel and unusual and never should have happened.
I also think there is a class bias that can occur as well; indeed, the entire Eugenics Movement got off to a start in the West because of upper class WASPS (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) wanting to cull the herd and purge society of undesirables, who could not justify their own existence based on what they earned and/or contributed to society (Corbett, 2017). Health care should not be denied anyone based on race, ethnicity, gender or class. It should be provided to one and all by health care professionals who have been trained to deliver quality care in a non-discriminatory manner. The fact that there is a history of discrimination all over the world suggests that people need to overcome some inherent flaw in the human character which can prevent one from being fair and equitable...
References
Benjamins, M., Whitman, S. (2014). Relationships between discrimination in health
care and health care outcomes among four race/ethnic groups. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 37: 402-413.
Corbett, J. (2017). The rise of eugenics. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=218&v=EwZ8PDyHCr4
Grace, B.S., Kara, T., Kennedy, S. E., McDonald, S. P. (2014). Racial disparities in
pediatric kidney transplantation in New England. Pediatr Transplant, 18: 689-697.
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