We are very pleased to post this wonderful piece of writing from “Anonymed”. He or she has good reasons for being anonymous which we won’t delve into. Sadly, 2023 is not a time of open and reasonable discussion in the western world, and particularly not in Canada.
Feb 26, 2023·edited Feb 26, 2023Liked by Pairodocs
Your personal account washed over me with so many emotions.
Once upon a time, when we were in very different financial circumstances than we are now, I took my daughter to emerg for a dental abcess.
I could see that the young female doctor was furious from what she was seeing. After writing the Rx, she spat out at me "And GET her to a DENTIST"
I nearly cried. We had no dentist, and no money. She couldn't know that my husband and I were working ridiculous hours trying to keep a failing business afloat. She wouldn't see that I would be calling a cab to get us home. We had no car.
I try to take this memory as a lesson. You absolutely cannot tell what is going on behind the scenes. I try (but don't always succeed) to give people the benefit of the doubt. Some memories I have of my "customer service" over the years are cringeworthy
An important article. Thanks for sharing. Your personal account, Chris, will resonate with many truly compassionate people that work in the public sector.
Interesting timing of this - as today, the article came about about the guy screaming racial slurs at international students on the bus here in CBRM. Not experiencing overt racism is more an indication of a position of privilege, than a representative sample of racism in our communities - you wouldn't have witnessed that, because you don't need to take the bus. And I wanted to match your anecdote with one of mine - I don't often discuss my ethnic descent, as it's not entirely obvious, but spending my formative years in Thunder Bay, when working the showroom floor in a music centre, after a First Nations couple came through, looked at some guitars, and left, the only other guy in the showroom - a white, middle aged man, waiting for his 2 kids to finish their private music lessons and testing a $2500 guitar (if that tells you anything of him), looked at me and said "Man, if I got a cancer diagnosis and had one day left to live, I'd get a machine gun and kill as many of those f#$@(* [indians] as I could." There it was - overt - the father of 2 kids, and I wonder what he says to his friends, to his family, to his coworkers, if he was willing to say that to me, a complete stranger.
In truth, as a CFA that isn't obviously a CFA in Cape Breton until I have conversation with people, we see this perspective play out in most of our circles - at work, volunteering, and in our leisure activities (running groups being the exception to this rule). As a well educated, well employed person who "looks" to be of the proper descent, I have been pulled aside and been told "We do things differently here, and no offense, you're not from here and so we don't want your ideas" by many people. As someone being told I'm "less" than "natural born Cape Bretoners" (as if that's a thing), it's an easy transition to knowing that overt racism - that seeing and treating people as less than yourself simply because they look a different way - is a thriving mindset here.
Twisting the narrative to say "He wasn't racist, he was just uneducated" is an important perspective - it is not a medical professionals job to "educate" people who are unintentionally (or intentionally) "overtly" racist. The gentleman in your anecdote - would he have said the same about a white soft-spoken female Doctor he wouldn't be able to hear as well (I'm sure glad your not the woman)? Hard to say - but what I can say is that we have been divided into a dichotomous society, where people who genuinely would benefit from the opportunity to ask questions that society deems uncomfortable could - guilt free - and that as such their limited perspective comes out at the wrong time - in an emergency setting where they are in pain. You shouldn't be the teacher in a setting that they shouldn't be a student in (at least for non-medical related things).
Your personal account washed over me with so many emotions.
Once upon a time, when we were in very different financial circumstances than we are now, I took my daughter to emerg for a dental abcess.
I could see that the young female doctor was furious from what she was seeing. After writing the Rx, she spat out at me "And GET her to a DENTIST"
I nearly cried. We had no dentist, and no money. She couldn't know that my husband and I were working ridiculous hours trying to keep a failing business afloat. She wouldn't see that I would be calling a cab to get us home. We had no car.
I try to take this memory as a lesson. You absolutely cannot tell what is going on behind the scenes. I try (but don't always succeed) to give people the benefit of the doubt. Some memories I have of my "customer service" over the years are cringeworthy
An important article. Thanks for sharing. Your personal account, Chris, will resonate with many truly compassionate people that work in the public sector.
Interesting timing of this - as today, the article came about about the guy screaming racial slurs at international students on the bus here in CBRM. Not experiencing overt racism is more an indication of a position of privilege, than a representative sample of racism in our communities - you wouldn't have witnessed that, because you don't need to take the bus. And I wanted to match your anecdote with one of mine - I don't often discuss my ethnic descent, as it's not entirely obvious, but spending my formative years in Thunder Bay, when working the showroom floor in a music centre, after a First Nations couple came through, looked at some guitars, and left, the only other guy in the showroom - a white, middle aged man, waiting for his 2 kids to finish their private music lessons and testing a $2500 guitar (if that tells you anything of him), looked at me and said "Man, if I got a cancer diagnosis and had one day left to live, I'd get a machine gun and kill as many of those f#$@(* [indians] as I could." There it was - overt - the father of 2 kids, and I wonder what he says to his friends, to his family, to his coworkers, if he was willing to say that to me, a complete stranger.
In truth, as a CFA that isn't obviously a CFA in Cape Breton until I have conversation with people, we see this perspective play out in most of our circles - at work, volunteering, and in our leisure activities (running groups being the exception to this rule). As a well educated, well employed person who "looks" to be of the proper descent, I have been pulled aside and been told "We do things differently here, and no offense, you're not from here and so we don't want your ideas" by many people. As someone being told I'm "less" than "natural born Cape Bretoners" (as if that's a thing), it's an easy transition to knowing that overt racism - that seeing and treating people as less than yourself simply because they look a different way - is a thriving mindset here.
Twisting the narrative to say "He wasn't racist, he was just uneducated" is an important perspective - it is not a medical professionals job to "educate" people who are unintentionally (or intentionally) "overtly" racist. The gentleman in your anecdote - would he have said the same about a white soft-spoken female Doctor he wouldn't be able to hear as well (I'm sure glad your not the woman)? Hard to say - but what I can say is that we have been divided into a dichotomous society, where people who genuinely would benefit from the opportunity to ask questions that society deems uncomfortable could - guilt free - and that as such their limited perspective comes out at the wrong time - in an emergency setting where they are in pain. You shouldn't be the teacher in a setting that they shouldn't be a student in (at least for non-medical related things).