Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care is a novel written by Augustus A. White III, M.D. Dr. White grew up in the segregated southern city of Memphis, Tennessee before the Civil Rights Act was passed. This novel tells the story of this orthopedic surgeon’s life and explores his encounters with racism.
Dr. White, or “Gus” as he went by as an adolescent, struggled with injustice his whole life. Whether he was facing them on his own account or watching it happen to someone else, it was occurring. A specific example of this is when Gus was trying to narrow down what colleges he wanted to apply to. He had his criteria of sports offered, good pre-med programs, and the last, “how did it treat Negroes?” This was an absurd criterion, but there was another aspect to this: Did the college even accept students of African American decent? Some colleges did not accept any Black students, while others operated on a quota system. This is an obvious injustice because even though an African American student may be just as qualified, if not more than a White student, they most likely cannot enroll in a school because of race.
Issues with power are seen throughout this book, most of them overlapping with injustices. The front flap, however, sums up the issues that Dr. White views in healthcare. It states, “The key to getting the very best medical care: be a white, straight, middle-class male.” While working as a scrub nurse one summer before he attended medical school, Augustus, witnessed a situation where a Black woman was powerless. She came to get a cancerous tumor removed by a white surgeon. The surgeon was disrespectful towards her before the surgery. During surgery, the woman was hemorrhaging, but the surgeon kept cutting and eventually let her die. There was no dignity involved. Had this been an unconscious or maybe even conscious bias of that surgeon? If the patient were a straight white male would the surgeon had explored another option?
This book certainly reminds me of works such as John Lewis’ March and MLK Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” There are many things related to civil rights because Dr. White grew up during this time. Dr. White, in his own way was contributing to the fight for civil rights. He held a lot of the “first” positions. That is, he was the first black American to accomplish things. Dr. White wants his readers to know about the biases in healthcare, but also to know about prejudices and racism of the past and present. This work certainly inspires conversation related to injustice, power, and identity.