Please respond to the following question below:
Should doctors and other health professionals take biological race into account when diagnosing and treating illness? Why? Can you think of a situation where thinking about race as biological might be misleading or have a negative effect? How would considering social race be different?
It seems that the earlier predictions of different races often the reason for different diseases is incorrect. I do not believe that it should be taken into account because it is very difficult to concur that one group of people have diagnosis A, while another group of people have diagnosis B due to biological race. This could be often misleading and could eliminate the possible actual disease(s) that the patient may have because they are one color rather than another. The young girl in the first episode in the film was a great example as she was suffering through sickle cell anemia. However, her biological race may have stated otherwise due to the belief and stereotypes of today’s world. I do not remember the women’s name in the video but she stated: “We created race, therefore we are the ones that can also think about on how to destroy it!”
Good response. How might social race provide clues to a physicians about the individual? Would you offer the same advice/warning for a physician taking into account social race? Looking forward to reading more of your responses.
The physician should ask the patient if possible, what the physical pain is and if not possible, try to find another method of diagnosis but to remember not to judge based on social race. Although, I do understand that it makes the diagnosis somewhat easier because it limits options and possibilities of what it could be, it cannot be the justification of why it should be that specific diagnosis.
One thin that seems to be a constant issue is that as humans we tend to confuse things for what they are not. Taking biological race into account will only cause problems in the present and major problems in the future. It is a misleading factor that seems to cause stereotypes to be made.People will begin focusing more on the bio race factor of the disease then the actual disease. Also it can lead to misdiagnosing people. For example: they say its likely for an African American to have HIV. If this stereotype was to hold off for a long period of time many people would be diagnosed wrong and it will really question some scientific findings. I think people in general should pry away from the biological race factor of certain illnesses. Considering social race will also be misleading because at the end of the day everyone is different. What may affect one person might not affect another.
I’d like to hear more about how social race might be misinforming. What information would social race provide a physician that might be useful? In what ways could considering social race be harmful? You made a good point about the dangers of stereotyping illnesses and groups of people– it takes away from the individual feeling as though they might have control/or contributed to the illness they are experiencing. Looking forward to reading more responses.
No because it can be misleading. Granted, some may be more prone to certain diseases (for example for many years people thought sickle cells was only an African American disease), it should not be the deciding factor. There are many other people from around the world that suffer from the same disease. If a doctor ruled out sickle cell to a Caucasian person because it’s not common, then the patient can possibly be misdiagnosed.
No because it can be misleading. Granted, some may be more prone to certain diseases (for example for many years people thought sickle cells was only an African American disease), it should not be the deciding factor. There are many other people from around the world that suffer from the same disease. If a doctor ruled out sickle cell to a Caucasian person because it’s not common, then the patient can possibly be misdiagnosed.
Good start for your response. I would ask that you consider more in regards to social race. What might social race explain about an individual– their environment, their opportunities, behaviors? And should a physician take those things into account? I’ll be looking forward to reading more of your responses.
I think that biological race has nothing to do when diagnosing and treating illness, because illness exists wherever we go around the World, and it is no determined by racial traits, but it is more about education and awareness about your health. For example I have worked for several years related with pacient under hemodialysis treatment where there are groups of race that are more affected. Chinese are in a very low numbers in treatment.
Race as biological might misleading about some behavior that certain groups can show in a particular situation. Leaving in New York City, where in my opinion this City is the World in a small size, give us the opportunity of appreciate that people from diferent country act different facing the same situation.
I think social race are different, maybe because our culture or the place where we Were born.
I don’t think doctor or health professional should count the biological race to diagnose the patient. We can’t justify a persons problem by knowing his/her race. It may mislead the treatment as well as may be threaten for the recovery process of the patience. In the movie, we see how the DNA test showed the similarity between the students although they all come from the different races. We just can assume that the race we are belongs to will have similar disease to everyone. In today’s world if biological races are using to treat the patient, it will be very unethical and unfair.
Doctors should not take biological race into account. You may belong to a race group but your mitochondria says you have strong similarities with a totally different race group. Because your race group is prone to certain diseases that does not automatically mean you are to. Let’s say your mitochondria is similar to that of a Korean and you are black. Your doctor tells you you’re at risk for diabetes because you are black, but Koreans have no history of diabetes. I think doctors should isolate each case rather then comparing it and generalizing it to the whole race.
In the video the example of sickle cell. In the video the. Narrator spoke about a stereotype that black people are prone to sickle cell. He went on to explain that it wasn’t because they were black that they were prone to sickle cell it had to do with the DNA of their ancestors. Also malaria was a factor that affected the DNA.
If scientist didn’t find this out then the stereotype would remain black people are prone to sickle cell. This would mislead lots of people. Which of cause is a negative effect.
Considering social race wouldn’t be any different because it’s still categorizing a group of people together. This will will probably lead to generalizing that particular race. Race shouldn’t be taken into consideration at all.
No, I do not believe that physicians/health care professionals should take biological race into account. There is no evidence to prove that race is related back to the biological aspect of things. When it comes to our DNA skin color, hair color, eye shape, and color have no correlation to the biological background of things.
Many ideas relating certain diseases to specific races are incredibly misleading. An example mentioned in the film, also one that is most spoke about is sickle cell anemia within the African American race. Biologically this finding is inaccurate. As shown in the film, the young patient diagnosed with the disease was a white female who had a Mediterranean background. This alone is proof that the theories about sickle cell in African Americans is misleading.
Social race is ultimately the same. The only difference is how people classify themselves socially. In other words, what groups do people associate with on a daily basis. Culturally many people feel most comfortable sticking together with their own race and culture. Not many people venture off outside of their comfortability within one culture.
There should be no separate treatment for any human due to their association of any race. All human require the same fundamental things to live and to fight off diseases. However, there is presence of different limitations and weaknesses that dwell among all human despite their racial or social classifications. If race becomes a factor in treating illnesses, there would be levels of care from quality to poor among each racial group.
There would certainly be misdiagnosis of treatment and care, sometimes deliberately as there would be room for justification of wrong doings set in predetermined documentations. Some groups would benefit from good health care over others. The least favorite racial groups would suffer the most and would bare the highest level of negative stereotypes associating them to certain diseases.
This would not be fair since a member from a preferred group could contract the same disease as one from the lesser group, but will receive better care to get healed more quickly while the lesser would not. I think this observation is obvious that members of the lesser group would become more ill and deteriorate, hence the stigma and stereotypes would seem apparent although incorrect.
No, I think doctor or any medical professional should not take the race into account when diagnosing the medical any condition. Race is just set of visible characteristics having nothing to do with deeply biological DNA traits. On the molecular level we all the same.
In my opionon, I don’t think that doctors should take biological race into account when diagnosing and treating illness because each patient is different and will yield different medical findings. I think that doctors needs to look at all aspect of the patient and not discriminate based just on race to diagnose and treat illness. This can lead to misdiagnosing a patient and possibly hurting the patient’s health long term.
Should doctors and other health professionals take biological race into account when diagnosing and treating illness? Why? Can you think of a situation where thinking about race as biological might be misleading or have a negative effect? How would considering social race be different?
I believe doctors and other health professionals should take biological race into account when diagnosing and treating illness because we can lean a lot about where they came from and what diseases or illnesses they came across in there lives. This also includes what illnesses are more likely to occur in theses people lives. Biological race might be misleading or have a negative effect because the person that is being treated might not have close ties or be nothing like what “race” would classify them as. The term Biological race to me doesnt make sense because race has nothing to do with biology. Race label giving to people depending what they look like physically. Biological or the biology of a person come down to genes blood type and things that are factually backed up through science. Social race be different because it has nothing to do with peoples genes it is just an label given out to people depending on their looks and how they act. Again this is a judgemental thing and a label put on groups of people depending on how they look.
Doctors and health professionals should not take biological race into account because it is used to classify humans based on their physical appearances. Biological race does not take into consideration the actual genetics of the individual. This can cause a doctor or a health professional into giving the patient the wrong treatment because the treatment was based on his race and not his background. This is the cause by years of mixing genes, since humans have migrated to different parts of the world and have been mating with different people with different backgrounds. Since race is an effort to categorize humans into groups, social race will look at individual’s social group and take into consideration their background to provide a better diagnosis based on this information.
I think doctors shouldn’t count the biological race to treat the patients. Disease doesn’t belongs to a person or their concurrence race. Anyone can affected by any disease which they are not familiar with. We need to remember, race is social classification of human being which created based on their appearance, and the place they born. A doctor can’t assume anything about the patients through their racial history. The patient may have the DNA which is similar from a different race. However, the health professionals may verify his/her background to check the problem is genetic or not. In my point of view, a doctor can’t provide treatment to a patient based on their biological race. It has to be determined through the patients physical states.
Doctors and health professionals shouldn’t take biological race into account when diagnosing and treating illness because not everyone in my race can have the same DNA traits as me, which can lead to false information for everyone. When I usually visit the doctor, they always ask for my family illness or health conditions history therefore, my doctor has never diagnose me with using my race as a way to treat my illness. If doctors diagnose by only using race this would grow a large type of stereotype against any particular group and therefore social race would be view different.
I don’t believe that biological race should be considered when diagnosing an illness in a patient. If people had illness just because of race than it would just stereotype a certain group. Race is just considered on what people see. Doctor’s often ask about a person’s history such as grandparents and parent’s illness. That’s what I think about biological race.
It all depends if based on medical studies. If the doctor thinks that there are significant different which can be in effect due to a treatment of an illness, and then yes the doctor should take biological race into consideration. However if the doctor sees that there are no difference by treatment than the issue of biological race does not matter. I think a situation where biological race might be misleading is maybe every time when one goes to the doctor’s office and the doctor judges you based on your race. The general public will not feel comfortable and will have arguments with doctors and will protest against the medical industry to change the policy.
I would have to say no because disease and illness don’t sit and say which race to infect, they don’t care about skin color, hair, height, or gender. we are all the same on the inside, the outside just helps define us as individuals. If a doctor or anyone in the health professional say yes to this then they are either impersonating a doctor or that doctor should have their license taken away from them.
There was one situation i was in with a few co-workers one night at a bar, i can’t really remember how it came up but one of them side that ” the major sickness in each race is that white people have cancer, blacks have sickle cell, and Latinos have high blood pressure…”. How he came to this conclusion i have no clue but is all of that misleading, yes it is.
social race has not change dramatically, as i would like it too but it’s happening slowly but surely. The world would understand each other more and they would be far less more conflicts, If everyone would get out of their comfort zone and mingle a little with “other races” as society puts it. I also think people are scared because of how other “races” are portrayed in society, they always see the bad not the good, especially in the black community but not mostly in the Muslim community now.
Doctors and other health professionals should not take biological race into account when diagnosing and treating illness. Most people have different DNA from their group. There are some people that have similar DNA to other people who are from different race. Race has nothing to do with illness. Diagnosing and treating illness should be based on the person`s physical and mental.
Biological race should not be taken into account when diagnosing and testing for illness because race is defines as a group of people who share similar a d distinct characteristics. Just because of someone’s race, Spanish, African American, Indian and etc. means when they go into the doctor they should specifically be checked for a certain illness because of their race.
Personally, I don’t believe that race has any ties with disease diagnosis. We should reject this non scientific statement and it is simply a manmade illusion. To some extent there are few exceptions where we can observe that some people of the same race are diagnosed with typical diseases more than others but we should not rule out these kind of observations as scientifically true. Instead, we should approach this type of situations from different angles. The socio-economic factor should be considered instead. Also, the level of education must not be put aside and I’m sure that there are other significant factors that can have the same weight as the two that I gave when deciding to determine what really cause a typical disease. We shall not allow these radical points of view to progress to a level of becoming true statements. If an African American individual had similar education as a white or caucasian or so had and if she/he belonged to a comparable socio-economic environment, we will understand that a disease such HIV can affect any individual regardless of her/his race. We should base our conclusions on scientific, economic and educational factors instead of race when it comes to linking disease diagnosis with any group of people.
I think it doesn’t hurt to take biological race into consideration when diagnosing or treating an illness. However, since it is a myth, it should probably not be taken seriously. It’s an idea we constructed and becomes an excuse for social differences. So this idea may lead to negative outcomes because it has been shaped by the perceptions of people and not on facts.
My sentiment is that doctors and other health professionals should take into account biological race when diagnosing and treating illness. If there are certain diseases prevalent in a certain race or in people of a certain area then why not. In the case of illness they are only trying to rule in or rule out certain illness. I do not find it offensive or racist. I do not think considering social race would be any different either. What I think may happen at times is that because of the microagressions “minoritites” (not just blacks either) experience on a daily basis that after a while the little innuendo’s become taxing on some people which makes them hyper sensitive to any singling out or identifying of that person. Every word has a meaning. If nothing meant anything then what would we have. Banana does not have the same name as orange. Yes they are both fruits but to distinguish them from the other, which we might have to do at times we have given them different names. Every one cannot be everything all the time.
However in a situation where thinking about race as biological may be misleading is take for instance in my family there are only two people in my family with Crohn’s disease. They say this disease is a Jewish disease along with colitis and Iritable bowel syndrome. So unfortunately when it is time for diagnosis a lot of people especially children get miss diagnosed. It seems as if they rather refer the child to Psychiatry inferring that they are ” love sick” over a boy or girl. Or say especially if it’s a girl that oh she is a teenager and just wants to be thin and look like these models out here. All of these excuses it seems just to not give a diagnosis of crohns to black children. We do loose valuable time when we just do not look at all of the factors. so yes some times it can be a detriment. social race is no different because the physical differences in people in different geographic areas are inherited as well as are the sameness like body size shape or characters. this sameness has to do with living in the climate environment and eating the dame foods which can all be attributed to similar strengths as well as disorders.
yes doctors and other health professionals should take biological into account when diagnosing and treating Illness. race has a factor in health because some diseases are hereditary. a lot of diseases out there are considered as chronic diseases. some illness can be transmitted from the mother to the child at the pregnancy stage. parental conflict and miss behavior can play a big impact on the child disorder. however, some mental health are not hereditary. social race is not based on biological factor it can be identified on someone culture or ethnicity, where as biological race’s relevant to diagnosing in treating illness cannot indicate what the cause of the diseases.
I think the doctors and other health professionals should take biological race into account when diagnosing and treating illness. Because they can learn a different scenario, such as what’s environment and condition of living that specific group were deal with before. It can open up for them a second thought about that disease. I believe biological race might be misleading or have a negative effect because diseases will effective to anybody. You cannot said that this disease only effective in this race and not in another race. It mays impacted less or more between different race. Environment is really effective to your body. For example, I was never having allergy with flowers power when I lived in Vietnam. However, I has got it after living couple years in the United States. So the environment really affects to my biological body.