An awakened Yale University doctor said doctors should be forced to wear body cameras to catch racist doctors as she claims to have seen a black teen die in the ER as colleagues ‘snickered’ and said ‘he’s just another criminal.’
Dr. Amanda Calhoun, 28, suggested mandatory body cameras in a recent op-ed The Boston Globe. Calhoun has been described as an “expert in the mental health effects of anti-black racism” – despite the fact that she is still a third-year resident physician at Yale.
“I have witnessed countless racist acts against black patients, often coupled with deliberate and cruel statements,” Calhoun, who is black, wrote in the piece. “I’ve heard white nurses joke that young black kids are likely to join gangs and doctors describe black people’s natural hair as ‘wild’ and ‘unkempt.'”
Regarding patient privacy, Calhoun wrote that families “can agree to release body camera images if they wish to file racism complaints.”
Yale officials have not said whether they will implement body cameras — or even whether they entertain the suggestion.
Dr. Amanda Calhoun Is An ‘Expert On The Mental Health Effects Of Anti-Black Racism’ — Even Though She Still Lives At Yale
Dr. Calhoun wrote that she had heard “White nurses joke that young black children are likely to join gangs and doctors describe black people’s natural hair as ‘wild’ and ‘unkempt.’
“If hospitals and medical institutions want to live up to those 2020 anti-racism rulings, prove it: have healthcare professionals wear body cameras,” Dr. Calhoun in the Globe.
“As a patient, I would feel much more comfortable if they did. And as a doctor, I will volunteer to wear one first.”
In the article, Dr Calhoun wrote that she had heard ‘White nurses joke that young black children are likely to join gangs and doctors describe black people’s natural hair as ‘wild’ and ‘unkempt’.
“I have seen black patients unnecessarily physically tied up,” she continued. “I’ve stood in the emergency department when a black teen died from a gunshot wound, while the white staff chuckled and said he was ‘just another criminal.’
Calhoun also wrote about the poor treatment by “white nurses” of her sister, who suffered an allergic reaction.
“Despite my mother’s insistence that my 9-year-old sister may have had a fatal allergic reaction and appeared to be wheezing, white nurses refused to treat her urgently, leaving her in the waiting room,” she wrote.
“Without even examining my sister properly, the nurses told my mother that she would have detected a nut allergy earlier in my sister’s life if it was severe.”
Calhoun pointed out how body cameras can help in real-time police actions and behavior situations and that they can be accessed during police brutality investigations.
Calhoun (pictured here with her husband at a protest) said doctors should be forced to wear body cameras to catch them racially abused after claiming she saw her colleagues ‘snicker’ when a black teen died in ER
“Monitoring individuals’ actions can lead to self-control behaviors,” she wrote. “If we want to see a reduction in poor health outcomes for black patients, we need to hold healthcare providers accountable in real time.”
“Three years have passed since the murder of George Floyd by police, which led to the release of anti-racism pledges to a host of national medical organizations,” she wrote.
“Yet black Americans continue to suffer from medical violence, which is deadly due to delays in medical care, pain under treatment and misdiagnoses.”
Calhoun has previously spoken out about being a black, female doctor, claiming she has received death threats over what some consider controversial statements.
After speaking to a White Coats for Black Lives demonstration at Yale School of Medicine, she begged her colleagues to understand that socioeconomic status does not protect black lives from racism.
Calhoun, in one 2022 HuffPost Columnstated, “Before I was a doctor, I was a black woman in America and my white coat won’t protect me.”
“Status does not protect my physician father from being pursued by the police in his neighborhood. Status didn’t protect my 8-year-old sister from delays in medical care because white nurses didn’t believe my pharmacist mom when she said my sister was wheezing from anaphylactic shock. Status doesn’t protect college-educated black women like me from being more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women who didn’t finish high school.’
Earlier this year, Calhoun wrote a piece for it MedPageToday about how she, as a black female doctor, doesn’t feel that Women’s History Month includes her.
“Each year, as the month passes, I am reminded that as a black woman, I am very hesitant to join women’s movements or initiatives without doing extensive research into their background and reputation. Frankly, I don’t trust them.’
She wrote of how she saw her white female colleagues “berating an extremely shy and incredibly knowledgeable black female pharmacist in public.”
“A few other female doctors — non-black people of color with more racial privilege — observed in silence,” she added.
But the irony, she wrote, was that “the same women doctors who belittled those female pharmacists are the first to talk about sexism and the need to uplift women, but they are also the first to exclude and belittle black women, regardless of the ” raise all women’ ideals they claim to have.’
“So I’m hesitant to join women’s movements because they put white women or women of greater racial privilege at their center by default, unless they actively try to disrupt that norm,” she concluded.