@Cakers3 wrote:
@Icegoddess wrote:
To tell you the truth, from what I saw on the show, I wouldn't necessarily come to the conclusion of racial bias on the parts of either the doctor or the charge nurse. More a case of over confidence. The only apparent racial bias was the doctor's question about how long Dr. Pravesh had been in the country. Suely, he had been asked that question before. Many doctors seem to have a God complex and don't like to be questioned. The issue is more of complacency because C-sections are considered routine. Of course her stomach hurts; she just had surgery on it. A little blood in the cath is normal. So, the question is whether he would've gone in to check on the woman had she been white, and given his attitude, I don't know that he would've.
I really wasn't watching that closely prior to the part where the doctor asked Dr. Pravesh the question about how long he had been in the country, so if something was shown demonstrating his racial bias before that I missed it.
@IcegoddessThat is why the committee is now formed to investigate every maternal death at Chastain.
If there is an uptick with women of color then certainly there is a racial bias problem.
The question to Dr. Pravash was unprofessional and we cannot say if he was asked that before. Even if that has happened, that doctor was out of line as a professional AND in the operating room, no less.
The episode may have left doubt but the seed was planted with the indicident with Dr. Pravash.
The charge nurse was dimissive of what she was asked to do; "short-handed" is not an excuse.
It was a heart-breaking episode and I thought that family was treated in a negligent manner overall.
I agree it was a heart-breaking episode. However, I do take issue with some of your comments.
1. There was no mention of an uptick with women of color, just that it happened to them more, and it had nothing to do with Chastain. It was referred to as a natiion-wide problem. But, since this incident and probably many more happened at Chastain is why Chastain set up the investigation team. Maybe it was done as a suggestion to other medical institutions to do the same. Since it's not an uptick, it doesn't necessarily mean it's racial bias. There are many reasons it could be other things. Someone else mentioned drugs, but my thought goes to many of the poorer areas of the country where medical care is little to nonexistent. Obstetricians have left the field, especially in these poorer areas. A lot of that has to do with the high cost of malpractice insurance for these doctors. So, it doesn't matter if everybody has ACA insurance if there's no doctors to take care of you. My state has only recently started allowing midwifery which might help in these areas, but shortly after passing that law the only registered midwives were in the metropolitan areas.
2. I see nothing wrong with asking someone about their background. To me it's no different than asking where are you from. Being from the South, if I were to travel to NYC I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear someone say "You're not from around here are you?" I wouldn't be offended. I think it's a sad state to be offended by every question about someone's background. A lot of it really has to do with how the question is asked, which is also why there are often misunderstandings on social media without the ability to hear the nuance or see the facial expressions. If it has to do with a conversation that had nothing to do with the procedure at hand, it seems from most of the medical dramas that I have watched over the years that it's a common practice. The conversations that go on in the operating room on The Good Doctor would put that simple question to shame as far as unprofessional goes. I don't know if that's how things actually are since I've never been awake for very long, although I usually do ask what they're giving me to put me out. Of course, in this case both the patient and her husband were awake in in the OR so there wasn't a chace of those sort of conversations going on.
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