A Tale of "Self-Policing" Professions?
Those of your who are early readers of this BLOG, may remember that I "lived" among a group of fine, old, Physicians at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital (Marine Hospital), in San Francisco, for more than a year, starting in 1960. I was "set upon" by the medical staff, who, realizing that I was attending S.F. State, and studying Physics, warned me about "Socialized Medicine". As I recall, that was their greatest Preoccupation!
Remember also, that I grew up on the Black Side of the Tracks in a small Missouri Town. That town had 3 Black Doctors, and a College for Blacks, established by the Town Founder's daughters, and named for the Founder. Founded, with the help of the CME Church, in 1882, it was burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan, in 1925. It was never replaced!
The youngest of our 3 Black doctors was a graduate of Kansas University; and my Grandmother was determined to get my mother married to him. My mother had other plans; she married the guy she loved, in 1930. In 1945, when Mother was experiencing severe difficulty with her 9th pregnancy, NONE of the three black Doctors, could, or would even try; to help her. One placed her in our Black "Hospital", and abandoned her to the attentions of teen-aged "Nurses". I learned, at the age of 6, that Doctors are not "Gods". When I learned, also, that Whites were in control of who went to Heaven, and how that journey would start; I realized that maybe their White God, was not, really, GOD! Nothing I have experienced in my almost 76 years has shaken that vision, or those revelations.
None of the Doctors in San Francisco's Marine Hospital were Black, as I recall. They all appreciated what I was doing and encouraged me. They helped a lot as I was studying "Eleven Blue Men" (a study of control of epidemics). One surmised that we all would be in trouble when the last of the old and experienced physicians died or retired. They told me that proper DIAGNOSIS requires EXPERIENCE, and is a skill rarely achieved by Doctors.
In these days of Obamacare, and at this late stage of life, I find that my life, and the lives of Blacks, in general, are under threat; from the many subltle "Segregations" that exist in U.S. Medicine. White Doctors, versus Non-whites, Doctors vs. Nurses, "Immigrant" Doctors vs. White Doctors; the list of "fractures" is long.
In Missouri, when a Plumber, for example, did a poor job for you, that plumber was often dubbed a "jack-leg"; a "professional" on the outside; an "incompetent" on the inside. All Professions have these; while NO Profession drives out their poor-performers sufficiently to protect the lives of the Public. That is extremely the case for Black Patients. Prone to view all Doctors as "Gods"; Blacks and other Non-whites have been "sitting ducks" that are quietly buried, after treatment at the hands of "Jack-Legs"!
Stay Vigilant: For Blacks; willingness to question your Doctor; is far more serious than "Yer Money or your Life"!
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