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May 22, 2023

A recent CNN headline — “We don’t have enough doctors” — is quite accurate.  The explanation given for the M.D. shortage is completely wrong. 

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CNN notes the “health-care workforce shortage is ‘more acute’ in Black and brown communities.”  The black community represents 13 percent of the U.S. population, but only 5.7 percent of American physicians are black.  The implication is clear: only black doctors should or can treat black patients or, at a minimum, will treat them properly.

This is racist dogma.  The vast majority of American doctors (and nurses) are blind to skin color, religion, ethnicity, and even criminal behavior.  Real doctors treat each patient as a unique, valuable individual without regard to demographics.  When Dr. Hugh Mighty, senior vice president at historically black Howard University, says, “As the problem of Black physician shortages rise … many communities of need will continue to be underserved,” he insults every white, brown, Asian, Native American, and black physician in this country.  

A National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities report confirms racial inequalities for health outcomes.  Minority populations are sicker, die earlier, and pose a huge economic burden compared to the white majority population. 

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When CNN or some government entity claims that such inequalities are due to providers’ racist behaviors and shortages of black doctors, not only are they wrong; they divert attention from the real reason.  Poor health is largely due to socio-economic factors such as poverty, poor education, limited availability of healthy foods, and inadequate access to care providers of any color.

CNN is completely off-base on why there is a severe and worsening doctor shortage.  The real reason is morale. 

Care providers enter the medical field because it is a noble calling.  Nurses and doctors used to be (note past tense) respected for their altruism and commitment to the individual patient.  Patients welcomed doctors into their homes for house calls.  Patients had faith in their chosen provider’s training and judgment.  Together, patient and chosen physician made personal, confidential medical decisions with no other (third) party involved.  Patients had a medical right to choose, and physicians had authority that corresponded with their responsibilities.  Physicians’ work used to be highly valued both by word and deed — i.e., compensation, especially after years of relative poverty in school and post-graduate training.

All of this has been lost, distorted, or destroyed. 

Now, there is the presumption that when a patient does poorly, it is automatically the doctor’s fault.  Government warns patients not to trust their doctors by enforcing clinical guidelines, algorithms, and crisis standards of care to “protect” the patient from the doctor. 

Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of the Morehouse School of Medicine, was right when she said that the COVID experience “pull[ed] away the curtain” from healthcare.  However, she attributed poor minority health outcomes to racism when, in fact, pulling away the curtain exposed the true cause for low morale and the resulting M.D. shortage: responsibility without authority.