Misconceptions White Doctors Have About Black Patient’s Pain

A new study shows a relationship between white medical students' myth about racial differences and how they assess pain of white and black patients.

Among white people there a lot of unanswered questions about white and black races. Is a black man’s skin thicker than a white man’s? Do white people have larger brains than black people? And so on and so forth.

Most white people grew up to believe even as medical students that black people less feel pain than whites. (Yeah… we also feel less hunger, less cold, less tiredness etc.)

An investigation recently conducted by a psychology research group in University of Virginia shows that in a group of 222 white medical students, over 50 percent agreed at least with one of the 11 myths about racial differences.

Comparing those results to how white doctors treat black patients, the group found out a disparity in the treatment of black and white patients in terms of pain therapy. The study shows that black patients get less pain medication, than white patients with similar conditions and pain levels. And the reason, as you might guess, is simple – most white doctors sincerely believe that black people suffer from pain less than white people.

The study pointed out that racial disparities in healthcare access, as well as social and economic differences, have contributed greatly to altering health outcomes between Whites Americans and African-Americans.

The research group concluded by saying: “It thus seems that racial bias in pain perception has pernicious consequences for accuracy in treatment recommendations for black patients and not for white patients.”