Kimani Paul-Emile, JD, PhD, and three other authors wrote guidelines for physicians when encountering racist patients, according to Medscape.
New England Journal of Medicine published the perspective paper.
Here are four ways to deal with racist patients.
1. Assess a patient’s medical condition. Physicians should treat and stabilize patients regardless of his/her opinions. If a patient is deemed stable, the physician should assess the patient’s decision-making capacity. A patient refusing treatment due to “bigotry” may be suffering from dementia, delirium or psychosis, which may cause the change in the patient’s preferences.
2. Consider accommodating a patient’s request. After assessing a patient’s decision-making ability and determining he/she is sound, the provider should try to transfer the patient to another facility or physician. Although institutions are under obligation to reject bigotry, the issue is much more complicated for physicians. The authors support physicians who do or do not accommodate the patient, and encourage physicians to tell patients their “hateful or racist speech is not allowed.”
3. Seek help from family members. If a patient is refusing care for racist reasons, the medical professional should enlist the help of the patient’s family members who can better accommodate the patient and negotiate.
4. Respect a patient’s beliefs. There is a fine line between rejecting a physician on account of bigotry versus cultural beliefs. For example, a Muslim woman may decline care from a male physician for modesty or cultural beliefs. “We know for communities that have faced discrimination in the past, a request for a same-race or same-ethnicity physician might increase the quality of care they receive,” Dr. Paul-Emile said. “We need to have a more nuanced and measured analysis for thinking about types of requests or rejections based on race.”
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