Posted: 8/4/2006 6:47:36 PM EDT
Years ago while living in Queens, my neighbor, who was doing his own building maintenance, fell from the rope hung scaffolding three stories. He fell straight down upside down. His head ended up in between his shoulders, no neck, chin or mouth showing. Believe it or not this incredible example of strenght not only survived but had the ability to walk first with a cane later without. When I first visited him was still a mess. He spoke with a heavy Polish (identified by him) accent and his apartment was filled with religious (Catholic) icons - pictures, statues, Crucifix. He was explaining his hospital ordeal - 27 doctors to tend to his totally destroyed neck, rebuilt with steel rods as well as one very f*cked up shoulder again rebuilt with steel rods. When going through the last set of surgeries before release he told me the the doctor's were Jewish. Specifically he said, "Is Jewish doctor?", who fixed him - he was upset and his voice agitated having been worked on by JEWS. He was a very recent Polish translant and was very bigotted as you can see. I mean really, this guy was lucky to have survived and then even luckier to have a tremendously talented team of Doctors some of whom were Jewish who fixed him well enough to walk again. YET HE HAD A PROBLEM being handled and helped by Jews. WTF? 
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I remember a story from Tennesse a few years back where some guy was taking his wife to the hospital for surgery, or baby delivery or something like that, and wanted a guarantee that no black doctor, nurse or staff member would be allowed to touch his wife. (Nothing against Tennessee - there are bigots in every state/country, I jsut remember the story from there when I heard it). |
I guess if he was in an accident sustaining life threatening injuries and the attending EMT was Black, he would want to wait and possibly die. Darwin at work here. |
With some of the stories that you hear from people claiming to have been abducted I would have thought that they would be right up your alley. Just think of all the beers you would get telling tales about those perverse space aliens. |
The rope snapped on one side, he dove head first into concrete alley way. His hands and arms sustained little damage - his head was tucked in surrounded by his shoulders. Made the local snapping turtle jealous. |
Actually, if anything, I would want to be operated on by a Jewish, Muslim, or Asian doctor. Sorry to stereotype here, but those three groups produce some of the scientifically/medically most educated and talented people in the US. Too many White doctors get through med school due to having a rich daddy buy them into med school when they are barely competent in it(I mean, they got satisfactory MCAT scores, but they were nothing special and didn't have the extracurriculars), and they then expect everything without doing anything. |
Hell, i don't mind being worked on by blacks, mexicans, or even eye-talians, but you better keep them dutch away from me!  J/K |
Wow, for the first time I have to say, that is just dumb. There is no pattern to be observed here. All kinds apply, all kinds have family connections, and all kinds succeed on talent alone. I can personally tell you about a Jew, a Muslim and an Asian who had a father make a large donation before getting into med school. And I can give you many many more doctors of all races, religions and creeds that did not. And while I will be the first to give any doctor grief that they are greedy and just into for the money, I can honestly say that the many many doctors I have worked with and represented really were dedicated and not motivated by the money. How do you find a good doctor? I do not know. But basing it on religion or race is not a factor. |
Be content with your overpriced, under-talented doctors then. There is a reason why Jews and Asians are making most of the medical advances(and scientific advances) in the world today, and while it is not due to their race, it is due in large part to the cultural values those societies have; Whites in this country have lost their Protestant based work-ethic due to increasing influence of socialistic and communistic ideals and are slipping down the drain of mere "satisfactory" credentials. |
Ya don't say? Wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that playing varsity water polo or some other "extracurricular" activity makes you a better doctor than having good MCAT scores. Enlighten us more, please, regarding U.S. medical school admission criteria, since you seem to know so much more than the rest of us. I'm holding my breath, waiting to hear more of your "wisdom". Doc H. |
I don't know more on the medical admissions process than anyone... besides it is a definitely "who you know" game. All I am saying is that most White doctors are poor to mediocre on average, more concerned with their golf game than their patients. |
Give me an f'ing break. Do you have any idea how hard medical school actually IS? I'm going to guess that you don't. People wash out along the way. Having a "rich daddy" isn't going to get anybody a passing score on the USMLE. |
Well, talking to my family friends that have been through medical school... not very, and some of these guys went to Johns Hopkins and Harvard. The dropout rate of most medical schools is pretty low. Getting in is the hard part, once you are in, most schools do their damndest to make sure you stay in and pass. Couldn't find a scholarly article on US dropout rates, but in the UK it is only between ~11%-~14%. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/313/7050/173/a EDIT: on Johns Hopkins: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/admissions/innovat.html
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So you don't know more than anyone else -- but you do know that it is a "who you know" game. I'm glad to hear you have the inside track. 
Oh, you've met most White doctors? Would you say hello for me? How the hell is he these days, anyway? |
I'm going to say one more thing to address above and then drop it. You know what? Maybe medical school wasn't hard for your family friends. It wasn't hard for me either. But you can take it to the bank that it IS HARD and it is NOT EASY for 99% of the population and Joe Rich Guy is not going to sail through without some brains onboard. |
okay, will give you that. All I am saying is that money allows those who... yes, are smart, but wouldn't have gotten into med school otherwise, to get in, and I find that seems to be a large problem among the "my dad is a rich lawyer/doctor/businessman and I am a doctor" crowd. I find this to happen more among White people than others. Plus, re-reading what I have said throughout, I really am buying into this "white people are privileged, and trample the rights of others" crap too much, and I apologize; I just really find the quality of the "next generation" of White doctors to be lacking in what their former generations had. |
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Get a load of this.... the doc that delivered my son on Friday was <gasp> Muslim.....and female too. But it gets even stranger....she went to medical school at American University of Beirut and did 2 residencies: New York Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell Medical Center and Beth Isreal Medical Center in NYC. Apparently she's considered to be one of the top perinatologists (an OB for high-risk pregnancies) on the east coast. |
 Best wishes to you and family. |
Congratulations, dad! Just to increase the common-knowledge pool around here, the second one was probably not another residency, but rather called a "Fellowship" in perionatology (also called MFM -- Maternal Fetal Medicine) |
So you're acquainted with "most" of the caucasian physicians in the U.S., are you? And reviewed all their board scores and malpractice histories, that you can make a blanket statement like this? Funny we haven't met, then. I'm white, but I don't golf...
No kidding? And how large is the sample of U.S. physicians you surveyed to allow you to make this sweeping generalization?
And how old are you exactly, that you can claim familiarity with so many previous generations of physicians? |
i would ASSume Johns Hopkins would only admit the baddest mofos to begin with |
I will admit it is pretty sweeping, and what I have said reaks of the "white people are *somehow* more privileged than their minority counterparts", I am sorry; I got so caught up in defending minority doctors that I slandered white ones.
Let's just say that I know through family/friends some people on the admission councils of some notable medical schools, and it has been a common thread among most of them that they find white candidates to be lacking in talent when they checked up on them through their careers. Once again, I made a generalization that cannot be proven, so I am sorry. |
Exactly. I made it through without much difficulty and did a Harvard residency. It wasn't as easy as my former career (disc jockey), but I had an enjoyable time. For most folks, medical education is very challenging. How do I know? I have family and many friends who have been through the education. The vast majority of them found it to be HARD. To Social: With regards to your mentioning specific schools, are you ready for a shock? Harvard, Johns Hopkins, et al. aren't necessarily the benchmark for medical education. Everyone has to take the US Medical Licensing exams, and all of the schools must be accredited. How you apply yourself through training is, arguably, much more important than where you train. I went to a *gasp* state medical school, and still managed to find a good residency and job afterwards. I've worked with students from all over the country, from both big names and state schools. By and large, you wouldn't be able to pick out where someone went to school just by working with them. Don't weigh too heavily the name of someone's med school when deciding if they are a typical example. In my group, we have people from Harvard, Mayo, UCSD, U of Washington, Ohio, etc. I've learned from each of them, and hope that I'm able to contribute in some small measure to their practice as well. Shock #2: I had many minority students in my med school class who were there as part of a preferential admissions policy. Quite the opposite of what you seem to have seen, I found that most white males in med school had to work very hard to make up for an institutional imbalance. And yes, we were discriminated against. I wish to avoid specific accusations, but it was well known in my class that one minority student organization had access to old test banks and would not distribute them to anyone else. Shock #3: I'm a white male. I suck at golf. I didn't know anybody in medicine and came from a non-medical family. My med school was 3000miles away from my home. I've also participated in residency candidate selection. "It's who you know" is often a line said by someone who is bitter about not being admitted to a certain position. Go to med school, then come back and teach the ARFCom physicians how the world really works.  Anything else I have to say has already been said by other ARFC docs. This was just to add another voice to the chorus. |
Again I am sorry to all here who I was being an ass to. Comes with the afterweekend hangover I guess.
I know, it usually only matters where you do your residency... if that.
Does that work with all minorities, including Asians and non-White Caucasians(non-Hispanic)?
Won't have the chance to be denied admittance, because I am not going to apply. Let's just say I did pretty damn good on the MCAT, and have very good grades, but I know I am an asshole and not a people person so I didn't apply(I am an asshole even when I am not suffering from a hangover). |
Thanks for your post. Sorry if my tone was too harsh - I just got home from a long day of work followed by 2 hours of business meetings and an hour of traffic. Mrs sleepdr is out of town and we have no groceries, so the Ramen noodles didn't help my cherub-like demeanor very much.  Depending on your ultimate goals, it may still be worth applying. You'd be amazed what kind of people skills can be learned during clinical rotations. Some folks do the MD not for clinical work, but as a stepping stone to other careers. One of our classmates got into med school, used his status as a med student to get into a top business school, then bailed on med school. That's a little rude, though, since it denied someone else who may have been more serious. I know a guy who had a letter of recommendation that said he'd only endorse the app if the guy ended up doing a nonclinical specialty. I respect scientists, but we did have an award at the end of med school: "best suited for research"  It went to the student who displayed the best bench science acumen at the expense of the human aspect of medicine.
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first it is "bigot", not "biggot", and I am White, so slandering Whites for me isn't bigoted, it is just something I do when I have a hangover( I am not too keen on Whites in the first place). |
I don't think anti-semitism in Poland began in 1939 - there is a LOOONG tradition of anti-semitism in many parts of Poland, especially rural areas. Goes back to the middle ages, not WW2. |
Well the same can be said for all of Europe for that matter. Poland had a very liberal policy toward allowing Jews within it borders - one of the reasons there were so many of them. Of course - anyone can descriminate. In Art Spiegalmans (sp) classic Maus 2, the authors holocaust surviving father is racist against "schwartzers". |
Excuse my spelling, so you are a bigot then, or racist? |
Self-hating White person, yes... you can call me what you want. EDIT: self-hating is not the right term, I just have indoctrinated myself against supporting whites. |
- and things haven't changed much. |
And what column do you check on the consensus questionnaire? |