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The Article in Brief
What Are You? A Biracial Physician on Nuanced Racism
Emma Lo
Background Emma Lo, M.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, writes a first-person narrative of how she, as a biracial, female resident and early-career psychiatrist, has experienced marginalizing incidents in her practice.
What This Study Found Lo draws attention to the oversimplified categories that fail to consider racial nuances and the resulting culture that excludes and devalues biracial or multiracial health care clinicians. She writes about the emotions she feels in interacting with her colleagues who do nothing to stop the perpetuation of patients' racist views; her frustration about her inability to speak out against and confront the microaggressions she experiences for fear of awkwardness; and shame for her own perceived propagation of racist viewpoints.
Implications
- Lo hopes that her essay illuminates the ambiguity necessary in dialogues about race and enriches literature about racism in medicine.