Hundreds walk to raise awareness about health, need for more minority physicians

Orlando Sentinel ^ | 7/31/10 | Anika Myers Palm

[ruralvoter]

Hundreds of children and parents gathered at an Orlando church early Saturday to raise awareness about health and obesity.

The Walk A Mile With A Child event at Grace Bible Church, sponsored by the National Medical Association, was designed to reach black and Hispanic Orlandoans with a message about the benefits of a commitment to physical fitness. (snip) U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin is lecturing at the NMA opening ceremony today. (snip) "The number of black physicians has been eroding," said Dr. Nelson Adams, of Miami. Adams is former state and national president of the National Medical Association.

[Habibi]

“Lower standards. Hand out medical degrees like candy.”

No reason to. My orthopaedic surgeon is an AF Academy graduate, plus his MD (wherever that came from. He know his stuff. Oh yes, he’s black, if that makes any difference to you one way or another.

All I care about is that he put me back together nicely.

[Blado]

Too many basketball players are .... what color? (I forget)

[LibWhacker]

No reason to.

Tell it to the race panderers. They're saying we do because high standards is the ONLY THING keeping them out of the profession, not money. Money is there for good students.

[TigersEye]

Maybe Obama will lower the requirements to become a black medical professional.

Maybe? The health care bill just passed has provisions for increasing enrollment of minorities in medical schools.

[badgerlandjim]

The fundamental problem is the relative lack of educational effort and achievement by blacks, especially in the hard disciplines that are based on science and mathematics. This sharply limits the pool of potential black medical professionals and assures that those who are recruited into the field must be accepted with significantly lower qualifications than white medical professionals.

Hell, that's easily remedied. Just lower the standards for all.

[ConservaTexan]

To the left, the word "minority" is a synonym for loser.

Outstanding! I have never heard it put better.

[Cloverfarm]

Who cares what color a doctor or nurse is? I mean, gee whiz, all that matters is that they do their job right!

[Rockingham]

Obamacare seems poised to take that path, so problem solved! The new way will be substandard medical care for the general public, but delivered by more black and brown faces so that we can be told that we are morally superior to the benighted olden days when white males put professional expertise and quality of care first.

[Kimberly GG]

So long as they continue to be taught and believe in Black Liberation Theology, nothing will change.

[Mom MD]

True. We all know the color of one’s skin is crucial to the practice of medicine / NOT!

[FlingWingFlyer]

When I’m sick or injured, ALL doctors “look alike” to me. That goes for gender too! I guess a doctor’s skin tone is important to some people when they are sick but I don’t “get it”.

[Mom MD]

Its not important at all to us nonracists.

The other problem is you can lower standards until medical degrees are handed out to an appropriate number of minorities (whatever that means) but how will you get them through residency? Medical school is not fun and games, but it is a cakewalk compared to long hours for little pay as a resident.

Then you have stringent board certification tests that up to half of candidates fail. Once you make it through that, you do make a nice living - if you are willing to work nights, weekends, holidays, your kids soccer games, etc. Coddled affirmative action candidates that are not motivated by a love of people and medicine will never make it, no matter how much you try.... And that’s the way it should be.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“America definitely needs more “minority physicians”.”

Yes, we definitely do need more minority physicians. A minority physician, my definition, is one who thumbs his nose at the FDA and the AMA and practices in a complementary and alternative (CAM) way to provide optimal healthcare to the patient. And all of this at a significant reduction in overall medical services cost, along with patients being actually cured of ailments. Think of a world without pandemics of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, arthritis, etc. It can happen.

[oldtimer]

I've seen a few "minority" ATP's, and am sure they were qualified to make it through the grueling series of ratings to get there.

What I was referring to was Jesse Jackson et pukes wanting to lower the bars.

[SaraJohnson]

We badly need affirmative action doctors to carry out Obama’s Death care! Yeah, that’s the ticket!

[Stentor]

The fundamental problem is the relative lack of educational effort and achievement by blacks, especially in the hard disciplines that are based on science and mathematics.

All that stuff is unimportant to the cult of cargo. All the goodies are created by the gods and everything important just happens. The white man has been running a scam the whole time.

If I didn't have grandchildren, I might find the coming total disaster funny.

[Rockingham]

That the failing is relative and incomplete is important and a basis for optimism. Most Black and Hispanic Americans want self-improvement and the dignity of being measured on their merits. This majority is betrayed though by leaders who play the old familiar skin game. If, as is increasingly possible, Obama brings the Democratic party to a devastating defeat, it may help lead to a decisive repudiation of the diversity con.

[Intolerant in NJ]

"The number of black physicians has been eroding," said Dr. Nelson Adams....may Doctor Adams some day end up in an emergency room being cared for by a physician who got into medical school, not on the basis of his grades or demonstrated abilities, but primarily because he, or she, was black.....

[Habibi]

What Jesse wants, and what the individual members of his race “gets” is two different things.

Those guys that come into the major carriers with “the grueling series of ratings”, still have to get past the sim check at the end of their first year. Every pilot is under probation his/her first year.

It is dark in the sim. It does not matter what color you are. If you bust the ride, goodbye. It is rather like lowering the bar to get into CA’s leading universities. You may get in, but that does not mean you graduate.

The privilege of working in a major (and others) cockpit is still based on a meritocracy. Race will not keep you there. It still is, as it should be, which should comfort some of those that are unfamiliar with that particular “environment”.