Sriram Shamasunder: Racism and the Off-Duty Doctor
Selected Excerpts
“On one of my days off, in street clothes—jeans and a T-shirt—I went into the hospital to finish dictating some patient notes. It was morning. As usual, I went through the metal detector coming into the hospital. I collected my stale coffee from the cafeteria. Later that morning, I got stopped by a police guard coming out of the bathroom, suspicious I might have been shooting up in one of the bathroom stalls. I presented my doctor’s ID out of my jeans pocket, and immediately apologies flowed like water from an open faucet from the mouth of the police guard.”
“If the soul is ignored long enough, the body rebels… Sometime when I fill out death certificates, I wish I could write the cause of death as poverty. Or American racism. “
“As a doctor, I am looking to make common cause with Black boys stopped by the police, shot by the police without a doctor’s ID to protect them.”
Discussion Questions
What moved you most about the essay by Dr. Shamasunder?
Home is a central theme to the essay. What does it mean to have a home? In what ways are the author and his patients displaced from or denied their homes?
Dr. Shamasunder powerfully draws a connection between racism and poverty, and disease and death. Hows does this resonate with your experience of healthcare?
Dr. Shamasunder seeks to “make common cause” with those who are oppressed. What do you think he means by that? What does it mean for you personally to “make common cause” with others?
In what ways do Maya Angelou’s poem, “Caged Bird,” and Shamasunder’s essay speak to each other?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“Only part of his identity was validated - the doctor part - but parts of him were clearly not welcome.” — @gumbo_amando
“[People of color] all over the globe didn’t wake up one day and decide to think of themselves as [people of color]. The history of common cause is the history of whiteness and violence *which creates otherness*. But common cause is also refuge, solidarity, and sanity of shared experience.” — @rfrosencrans
”The thing that sticks with me is the feeling that what happened to the author happens to so many [people of color] in and out of medicine everyday. Rather than being shocked or moved by the essay I just felt a discomforting sense of familiarity.” — @DianaCejasMD“Moved by the sadness I felt wondering why the person the cop thought they saw without the white coat was somehow incongruent with who they saw with the coat. It's the same person—yet they are seen differently b/c power & status have more value than personhood.” — @LanceShaver
“That putting on a white coat or even an ID puts you in a different position. As a student, I feel like a fraud. As a Latina, I long to be able to relate with my patients without them assuming I won’t understand. As a person, I want to check my privilege” — @BriChristophers
“It made me think about how things like race and racism, or poverty, or homelessness, etc are often relegated to the social history, when the social history is really the entire story.” — @AltafSaadiMD
About this #MedHumChat
“Racism and the Off-Duty Doctor” was paired with “Caged Bird,” a poem by Maya Angelou, and “A Tough Mind And A Tender Heart,” a sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr. for a #MedHumChat discussion on January 16, 2019 exploring Racism & Medicine.
We were honored to be joined by special guest Dr. Utibe R. Essien (@UREssien), an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, practicing general internist, and health services researcher with a focus on racial/ethnic health disparities. You can learn more about him here.
The pieces for this chat, along with the discussion questions, were selected by Colleen Farrell.
About the Author
Dr. Siriam Shamasunder (@srijeeva) is a poet, doctor, and Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine with an interest in global health, health equity, and narrative equity. You can learn more about him here.