Louisville Medicine Volume 66, Issue 11 | Page 30

OPINION DOCTORS' Lounge (continued from page 27) other three siblings had helped to trans- form the place from a subpar school to a modern magnet with much higher educa- tional standards, a school that partners with museums all over the city and far away to set alight the child’s ambition, success and self-respect. The exhibit at that time was “We Shall Overcome,” a multitude of black- and-white photographs of Nashville and her people during the Civil Rights struggles. That got Dr. Churchwell talking about the private, half-day tour he had arranged for multiple Vanderbilt dignitaries, officers and trustees when the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture had opened in Washington, DC. He pointed out that some of the attendees were utterly shocked to see the evidence of lynchings, the ruinous lives and deaths of slaves and sharecroppers, the endless brutality of the KKK. He said to us, “They didn’t know about it. “ “They stood there and some of them cried. They stood there and were just in shock.” That floored me. How could educated people close to and of my generation not know about slavery and civil rights? Where did that complete unawareness come from? And then I remembered that I was once again making the mistake of assuming that what is important to me is important to many other people. What I believe to be vital knowledge of our country and our culture is immaterial to others. What they have been taught and what they experience growing up is different from what happened to me. They may have grown up in a culture that assumed the superiority in all things of peo- ple who were born white. They may never have, somewhere inside, actually questioned or protested that culture. The beliefs they held about their country had to be violently unlearned. The assump- tions I made about the extent of progress our educational institutions have made in matters of racial equality, I must unlearn also. I believe that racism is very much alive and is a clear and present danger to people of color in America every day. As physicians, we are trained to see the person in front of us without prejudice of any kind. As human beings, we are full of many and competing prejudices that threaten our ability to care for others. We may privately discount their char- acter if they smoke or drink or take drugs; we may inwardly chastise them for hurting their health in a multitude of ways, for not following advice, or for simply showing up late. But with our stethoscopes on or off, we must try to understand all with kindness. We have to root out and define our own assumptions, to unlearn what we unthink- ingly learned in the past. Self-awareness here means confronting those assumptions wherever they may appear. Naivete’ is a fact of life, but not a defense of asking too few questions. Dr. Barry practices Internal Medicine with Norton Community Medical Associates-Bar- ret. She is a clinical associate professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, Department of Medicine. IF YOU SEE SOMETHING Say Something Timir Banerjee, MD W hen Kronos wanted to become the king of the Titans, he married his sister Rhea and cut off the testicles of his father Uranus with a sickle, and then swallowed his children because it was prophesied that he would meet similar fate. I believe then he had peace, or at least that’s how the story goes. He carried on until his son, Zeus, removed his appurtenances and dis- lodged him from his position of power. The foam from the spilled blood of Uranus in the ocean created the beautiful Aphrodite. Fortunately today, the sense of morality and ways of gaining power are a bit different. 28 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE Although, there have been times when I have felt that my feelings of frustration have ballooned so that I desire orgiastic worship of Cybele so she will to change the world my way. I have recited Lord Byron’s “Venice,” par- ticularly “watering the heart whose early flowers have died and with a fresher growth replenishing the void.” I just received a certificate from the Ken- tucky Medical Association recognizing 50 years of service as a physician. I took this as an opportunity to reminisce about my long practice. I have recognized that writing is a great cathartic. It’s certainly a better way to vent my feelings as opposed to peaceful demonstration or protest; these days, there is invariably looting, stealing, and car or flag burning accompanying “peaceful” protests. I will share some ideas about the changes in medicine, and how care is delivered these days to the public at times. I grew up as a child watching Mahatma Gandhi march, listening to the radio about newsworthy events, then reading about them in the newspaper the following day. We did not have a TV. My first exposure to medicine was watching my grandfather, a village doctor in India. He delivered babies, sutured wounds, gave injections and didn’t