By Dr. Michael Multan

The recent public conversations around the Black Lives Matter movement has provided me with an opportunity to reflect around my own knowledge, biases, and experiences surrounding race and racial issues.

I am a white, male, first-generation Polish Canadian. Thus, the opportunity to share this viewpoint and this story comes mostly from a place of privilege. It’s a story I think is worthy of discourse surrounding solutions—and I have no idea what they are.

Years ago, I was a junior learner at a large tertiary hospital working on an internal-medicine unit. This service consisted of three teams, each with a number of residents and students sharing responsibility for calls, taking care of ward patients, and seeing new visitors the emergency room. A senior internal medicine-resident was stationed there, and acted as the overall internal-medicine lead managing the team and splitting consultations between each of the team’s residents.

I remember heading to my call room around 2:30 a.m., after having done a few consultations that evening, hoping I’d get a few hours of sleep before our 8 a.m. rounds.

That’s when I got the page.

“Mike, I know your team has already admitted a few patients this evening, but I was wondering if I can get you to see another patient in the ER,” asked the lead resident.

“We have a stable but sick patient we need to admit. I will go and see them with you in a bit, but they are refusing to see females and providers of colour. Can you help?” the lead explained.

I was angry. I was tired, and I couldn’t believe it.

I wasn’t even sure who I was angry at, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever figure that out.

Begrudgingly, I went down and saw “John Doe”*. They had managed to answer many of my questions regarding their symptoms with racist commentary about the “incompetence” of the nursing staff and physicians they had seen in this and in previous health-care encounters.

I knew I had a responsibility to provide the best care that I was able to the patient standing in front of me. After all, everyone deserves respect and great care in a public health-care system I continue to be extremely proud of. But at what cost?

Eventually I had to speak up. “We’re here to talk about you, and your comments are very inappropriate. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Some of my best teachers have been both women and persons of colour.”

Our rapport wasn’t the same after that comment, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that our encounter was more brief than the care I would aim to provide in less frustrating circumstances.

Unfortunately the story of “John Doe” is not unique. Similar stories exist exemplifying health-care provider prejudice towards patients.

As physicians, our responsibility is first, and foremost, to the well-being of our patients. But what happens when the opinions of our patients are not only different than our own, but deeply problematic?

The Black Lives Matter movement has identified a need to empower black and diverse voices, and has allowed us all to call out institutions and individuals who continue to contribute to a system of deep-rooted discrimination.

I still think Mr. Doe deserved the best care possible. My colleagues and mentors, many of whom were and are people of colour, deserve respect and allies to stand up for them when situations like this occur. I have friends and colleagues who, based on Mr. Doe’s behaviour, have said that in their opinion, Mr. Doe should not have been seen at our hospital at all.

Systemic racism is complex and difficult to address in the short term. I hope that as stories of racism, violence, and discrimination against people of colour continue to be widely discussed, we’ll arrive at solutions.

And to all of the Mr. and Mrs. Does—be mindful of your comments, not only to your health-care providers, but to everyone around you. Health-care providers are tasked to listen, counsel, diagnose, and heal. They shouldn’t have to face indirect, let alone direct and overt, trauma.

As we move toward solutions, there may one day be no place for this sort of behaviour in any modern Canadian hospital—from providers and from patients.

* The names, dates, details, and medical facts of this case, while founded in truth, have been altered significantly to protect confidentiality.

Dr. Michael Multan is a pathology resident physician at UBC. He completed medical school at Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine and previously trained as a physician assistant at McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario. Follow him @MultanMichael.