{"id":48652,"date":"2016-08-15T17:38:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T17:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48652"},"modified":"2016-08-15T17:38:30","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T17:38:30","slug":"the-misuse-of-race-in-medical-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48652","title":{"rendered":"The Misuse of Race in Medical Diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pediatrics.aappublications.org\/content\/113\/5\/1394\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>The Misuse of Race in Medical Diagnosis<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pediatrics.aappublications.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/pediatrics.aappublications.org\/content\/113\/5\" target=\"_blank\">May 2004, Volume 113 \/ Issue 5<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Richard S. Garcia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am a 39-year-old Hispanic male born in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stockton,_California\" target=\"_blank\">Stockton, Calif<\/a>, to a mother who\u2014after many years of unwise eating\u2014has recently been diagnosed with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diabetes_mellitus\" target=\"_blank\">diabetes<\/a> and to a father I didn\u2019t know who floated away at the end of a needle in his sister\u2019s garage. I prefer being called Mexican to Hispanic, though I\u2019ve never been to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mexico\" target=\"_blank\">Mexico<\/a>. I eat a fat American\u2019s diet. Speak <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_English\" target=\"_blank\">American English<\/a>. Although I don\u2019t smoke, I have been living in a big city with polluted air. An American city where I recently was an assistant professor of pediatrics, working in a profession that tries to define my indefinable race without asking for my input.<\/p>\n<p>I helped train medical students and residents who are all taught, as I was when I was a medical student, to assess each patient first in terms of age, race, and gender. Always in that order. A 52-year-old white female, a 3-month-old Asian male, a 39-year-old Hispanic male. The actual identity of patients remains ignored: A 47-year-old African American female\u2014who\u2019s never been to Africa and prefers to call herself black if ever asked by a white doctor, though none ever asks\u2014two-pack-a-day smoker, still living with her mother in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/South_Los_Angeles\" target=\"_blank\">South Central Los Angeles<\/a>, presents with fatigue.<\/p>\n<p>The doctor asks the patient\u2014or the parent of the patient, if you\u2019re a pediatrician\u2014for his or her age. The gender is determined during the physical examination&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read or purchase the article <a href=\"http:\/\/pediatrics.aappublications.org\/content\/pediatrics\/113\/5\/1394.full.pdf?download=true\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Misuse of Race in Medical Diagnosis Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics May 2004, Volume 113 \/ Issue 5 Richard S. Garcia I am a 39-year-old Hispanic male born in Stockton, Calif, to a mother who\u2014after many years of unwise eating\u2014has recently been diagnosed with diabetes and to a father I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2039,8],"tags":[24741,24740,15405,24734],"class_list":["post-48652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","tag-pediatrics","tag-pediatrics-official-journal-of-the-american-academy-of-pediatrics","tag-richard-garcia","tag-richard-s-garcia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48653,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48652\/revisions\/48653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}