Under-representation of certain societal groups within the medical profession has dominated the headlines in recent weeks.
First, a Royal College of Physicians’ report suggested that while women are set to outnumber men in the profession, few have moved into senior leadership roles.
Then we had Alan Milburn’s study on social mobility - or to be more accurate the lack of it - which claimed that only people from privileged backgrounds can make it into professions like medicine or the law.
Both make lots of suggestions for promoting equality and opportunity - neither go so far as to advocate positive discrimination. Why not? If you want to have any sort of impact within a reasonable timescale then it’s got to be used.
The government and medical institutions also have to show some leadership on the issue. There should be more diversity in senior appointments.
Who did President Barack Obama recently appoint as the US’s surgeon general? Another white, male, professorial-type steeped in politics? Not exactly. Regina Benjamin - a black, female, family physician from Alabama.
In 1990, Benjamin founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic to serve a fishing community of 2,500. Eight years later, Hurricane Georges devastated the clinic. She rebuilt it, only to see Hurricane Katrina destroy it again in 2005. She rebuilt the clinic once more. It was destroyed by a fire. Apparently, she now operates the clinic out of a rented house and, in a town where about 40% of residents are without health insurance, she doesn’t turn patients away for an inability to pay.
On appointing her, President Obama said: “For nearly two decades, Dr. Benjamin has seen, in a very personal way, what is broken about our healthcare system. Through floods and fires and severe want, Regina Benjamin has refused to give up.”
Reform of the US healthcare system is high on the political agenda and the new surgeon general would appear well placed to contribute.
Our fine words on equality and opportunity are all very well, but a few more actions would be better.
Tags: Equality, US healthcare
