As a Canadian, my first thought upon reading the title of this article was to wonder where. The entire world? The anglosphere? The USA? From a quick glance, it looks like the data is entirely from Florida.
This is valuable, but likely to be misused like the first study. To cut through the assumptions, we should next look at low-birth-weight baby survival rates by doctor race (white vs. black). Similar rates would be telling; differences might reveal ways to improve survival overall.
I personally think the original study is more likely to be misused than the latter for the simple reason that it’s radically out of step with reality. Inaccurate views are rarely a good basis for making the world a better place. In this case, I can only imagine it would do the opposite. It represents a grave accusation of racism against White doctors, and is likely to provoke racial animus. And efforts to solve non-existent problems inevitably take resources away from real ones.
How might the rejection of the original study be misused? The only way I can think of would be that some might overgeneralize from it and conclude that all claims of racism are false. If so, though, some of the blame for that would fall on the original study: When such a fundamental error finds its way into print in a prestigious journal, it’s understandable that people become wary of other claims in the area.
The original report would have lead to all kinds of incorrect assumptions, from White doctors doing bad things to black babies to supporting DEI hiring over the most qualified applicant. However I can see some (probably not a lot let) making assumptions that white doctors are better because of 2nd report &/or black doctors are worse.
What I couldn't tell (and this could be me), was there better outcomes for the child with a black or a white doctor when they were underweight. ie just because lots of underweight kids were seen by white doctors might just mean their happened to be more white doctors trained in that area. Hope that makes sense. ie it would be great to get the whole picture rather that just challenge to the initial claim.
I see - yeah, that makes sense. Some people might leap to that conclusion. Fair point.
My understanding is that there are currently somewhat more White than Black doctors with enough experience to deal with the most difficult cases, presumably because such doctors are older, and fewer Black people had the opportunity to train as doctors back when today’s older doctors were starting out.
So technically, it doesn’t mean that White doctors are better: A Black doctor of the same age and rank would be just as skilled. There are just fewer of them.
But some people would no doubt fumble that idea and decide that White doctors are better.
I’m from Brazil, and I get the impression that here the careers aren’t meritocratically structured like that. The hospital physicians is the hospital physician.
As a Canadian, my first thought upon reading the title of this article was to wonder where. The entire world? The anglosphere? The USA? From a quick glance, it looks like the data is entirely from Florida.
This is valuable, but likely to be misused like the first study. To cut through the assumptions, we should next look at low-birth-weight baby survival rates by doctor race (white vs. black). Similar rates would be telling; differences might reveal ways to improve survival overall.
I personally think the original study is more likely to be misused than the latter for the simple reason that it’s radically out of step with reality. Inaccurate views are rarely a good basis for making the world a better place. In this case, I can only imagine it would do the opposite. It represents a grave accusation of racism against White doctors, and is likely to provoke racial animus. And efforts to solve non-existent problems inevitably take resources away from real ones.
How might the rejection of the original study be misused? The only way I can think of would be that some might overgeneralize from it and conclude that all claims of racism are false. If so, though, some of the blame for that would fall on the original study: When such a fundamental error finds its way into print in a prestigious journal, it’s understandable that people become wary of other claims in the area.
The original report would have lead to all kinds of incorrect assumptions, from White doctors doing bad things to black babies to supporting DEI hiring over the most qualified applicant. However I can see some (probably not a lot let) making assumptions that white doctors are better because of 2nd report &/or black doctors are worse.
What I couldn't tell (and this could be me), was there better outcomes for the child with a black or a white doctor when they were underweight. ie just because lots of underweight kids were seen by white doctors might just mean their happened to be more white doctors trained in that area. Hope that makes sense. ie it would be great to get the whole picture rather that just challenge to the initial claim.
I see - yeah, that makes sense. Some people might leap to that conclusion. Fair point.
My understanding is that there are currently somewhat more White than Black doctors with enough experience to deal with the most difficult cases, presumably because such doctors are older, and fewer Black people had the opportunity to train as doctors back when today’s older doctors were starting out.
So technically, it doesn’t mean that White doctors are better: A Black doctor of the same age and rank would be just as skilled. There are just fewer of them.
But some people would no doubt fumble that idea and decide that White doctors are better.
Why white physicians attend more low weight black babies?
Because among physicians senior enough to do so, more are still White than Black.
I’m from Brazil, and I get the impression that here the careers aren’t meritocratically structured like that. The hospital physicians is the hospital physician.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback Professor!