A racial gap in the health-care system

Minority doctors seen facing hurdles

By Kimberly Atkins, Globe Correspondent ( 8/10/2001)

Black and Latino doctors have a harder time than white doctors getting hospital and specialty care for their patients, says a study released [on Aug. 9, 2001] - a disparity that researchers said reflects a growing racial gap in care.

One in three black and Latino physicians reported having difficulty getting their patients admitted to hospitals, compared to one in four white physicians, according to the study by the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan policy research organization.

Twelve percent of black doctors and 15 percent of Latino doctors reported difficulty getting specialty referrals for their patients, compared to 8 percent of white doctors.

The study was published [on Aug.9, 2001] in Medscape General Medicine, an online medical journal.

The difficulties that minority doctors face point to a bigger problem - the quality of health care received by minority patients, said Lee Hargraves, the study's lead researcher. That's because minority doctors are more likely to treat a larger percentage of patients with the same ethnic background.

Lack of access to quality health care can particularly affect blacks and Latinos, who are at higher risk for a number of illnesses including diabetes and heart disease, diseases that often require hospitalization and care by endocrinologists and cardiologists, Hargraves said.

The findings hit home for many physicians.

''This mirrors my experience in a lot of ways,'' said Dr. Joseph Betancourt, an internist at Massachusetts General Hospital who serves as director for multicultural education.

Betancourt, who is of Puerto Rican descent, said that in practice he often had a difficult time finding his patients specialists who could speak Spanish. He now teaches students at Harvard Medical School and residents at Massachusetts General Hospital how to take cultural issues into account when giving medical care.

The study validated a lot of what black doctors have been experiencing anecdotally for years, said Dr. Rodney G. Hood, former head of the National Medical Association and an internist practicing with three other black doctors

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/pl/080601billclinton

AP - Tue Sep 25, 5:59 PM ET Former President Bill Clinton, left, speaks at 50th anniversary observances of the integration of Little Rock Central High School as the nine students who integrated the school and other dignitaries look on in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday,

I keep studying that famous photograph and I am still wondering... where's Forrest Gump in that picture?

Central High School in Little Rock is now 100% Black in a black community which is now a dangerous slum. In 1957 it was a all White lower middle class neighborhood.

So this social experiment didnt work out as planned. The white simply moved out leaving the once well kept neighborhood to its fate.