Aren't y'all worried about the debt?

[TheTao]

Interesting to note your comment. You may change your mind when doing a peds clinic rotation where the mom states she want Tylenol written as a script because "she can't afford it (Medicaid will pay for it) yet there is not problem having nails done, cell phone, heels, coach bag, etc. It's sickening.

I've volunteered in poor communities all my adult life and lived in one of the richest counties in Metro DC. I'm currently volunteering at a county hospital and an elementary school in a rural, poor Southern county. I also privately tutor students in a very wealthy Southern county.

So based on a lifetime of experiences, including my current ones, my statement stands. The difference IMHO is that people seem to think the rich are entitled to have entitlement issues, pun very much intended. The poor are expected to be happy with whatever the heck they can get.

Thinking like that not only sucks, it blows. BIG TIME!!!!

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[TheTao]

No entitlement issues among the poor? Only in the minds of those who've never worked among the poor.

Feigned disdain is better wasted on the rich who have essentially ruined the field of medicine.

 

[QofQuimica]

Actually it's not the same as poor people rarely have "entitlement" issues.

Poor people rarely have entitlement issues?!?!? What PLANET do you live on, and how can I move there? Seriously, PM me where, and I'll start looking for a job there now.

I've never understood this desire to romanticize the poor. In terms of their sense of entitlement, they're exactly like the middle class and the rich, only with less money. I mean, they all watch the same TV ads promoting the same hyperconsumption lifestyle. Maybe it's different if you're not talking about Americans. But I'd argue that Americans of all socioeconomic statuses and all political persuasions, are, on the whole, entitled. As I overheard one of my nurses tell a patient, sorry, this isn't Burger King, and you don't get to have it your way.

 

[didymus]

Poor people rarely have entitlement issues?!?!? What PLANET do you live on, and how can I move there? Seriously, PM me where, and I'll start looking for a job there now.

I've never understood this desire to romanticize the poor. In terms of their sense of entitlement, they're exactly like the middle class and the rich, only with less money. I mean, they all watch the same TV ads promoting the same hyperconsumption lifestyle. Maybe it's different if you're not talking about Americans. But I'd argue that Americans of all socioeconomic statuses and all political persuasions, are, on the whole, entitled.

#preach

As I overheard one of my nurses tell a patient, sorry, this isn't Burger King, and you don't get to have it your way.

Keep this nurse forever.

 

[TheTao]

I've never understood the desire to negatively stereotype the poor. All poor people are NOT the same. And unless YOU have been poor or lower middle class ( I was raised in a lower middle class family) I fail to see how ANY of you can mischaracterize an entire socioeconomic class of people! Just because Shenanae would rather get her nails done than pay a $5 copay, doesn't mean Jamal should be assumed to have the same misplaced responsibility. Least we forget that Becky and Molly in Appalachia and rural Idaho respectively, have the SAME "issues" but I don't see any reference to them in this thread.

IMHO, these last few comments are part of what's wrong with med school admissions/the medical profession today, the people charged with making life and death decisions hold bigoted views about the people they are supposed to treat. Yet people wonder why all things being equal, health disparities exist today? No surprise to me.

Actually, it's my bad, this isn't the place to have a real discussion on issues like these.

#sesdiversityinmedschoolstat

 

[didymus]

I've never understood the desire to negatively stereotype the poor.

An observation is not a stereotype.

All poor people are NOT the same.

All rich people are, though? You said the rich have essentially ruined the field of medicine.

Also, you lumped poor people together when you said, "poor people rarely have entitlement issues."

You seem upset at people for allegedly doing something you have done yourself: generalized and stereotyped (when no one here has done that, and, actually, we have said that these problems are with those in middle and upper classes as well). We were reacting to your absurd statement that the poor rarely have entitlement issues. That statement revealed a massive blindspot in your world view, suggesting you may be romanticizing poverty, and likely falling into another one of those pesky confirmation biases that seem to be showing up on this thread among those of a certain political bent.

And unless YOU or anyone has been poor or lower middle class ( I was raised in a lower middle class family) I fail to see how ANY of you can mischaracterize an entire socioeconomic class of people!

Yup. Grew up in intense poverty. Had home foreclosed on. Lived in a car. Gone without food. First person in my family to go to college. All discussed in my personal statement. You make a lot of assumptions about people on an anonymous forum. One assumption you make is that anyone who "criticizes" the poor has not been poor, and that anyone who has experienced poverty will think like you.

Sounds like you believe poor people are a monolith.

IMHO, these last few comments are part of what's wrong with med school admissions/the medical profession today, the people charged with making life and death decisions hold bigoted views they are served to treat.

Damn! I should have said inb4 accusations of bigotry. Since accusing people of bigotry is the default strategy of many left-leaning people when they are losing an argument, I guess it had to happen eventually.

Yet people wonder why all things being equal, health disparities exist today? No surprise to me.

#sesdiversityinmedschoolstat

Health disparities exist because rich people have bigoted views of poor people? That's why health disparities exist?

 

[didymus]

Just because Shenanae would rather get her nails done than pay a $5 copay, doesn't mean Jamal should be assumed to have the same misplaced responsibility. Least we forget that Becky and Molly in Appalachia and rural Idaho respectively, have the SAME "issues" but I don't see any reference to them in this thread.

If you don't understand the very basic differences between the urban and rural poor I'm not really sure what to tell you. I don't know if your name is Conrad, but you've got a lot of living to do.

 

[cabinbuilder]

I've never understood the desire to negatively stereotype the poor. All poor people are NOT the same. And unless YOU have been poor or lower middle class ( I was raised in a lower middle class family) I fail to see how ANY of you can mischaracterize an entire socioeconomic class of people! Just because Shenanae would rather get her nails done than pay a $5 copay, doesn't mean Jamal should be assumed to have the same misplaced responsibility. Least we forget that Becky and Molly in Appalachia and rural Idaho respectively, have the SAME "issues" but I don't see any reference to them in this thread.

IMHO, these last few comments are part of what's wrong with med school admissions/the medical profession today, the people charged with making life and death decisions hold bigoted views about the people they are supposed to treat. Yet people wonder why all things being equal, health disparities exist today? No surprise to me.

Actually, it's my bad, this isn't the place to have a real discussion on issues like these.

#sesdiversityinmedschoolstat

WOW o WOW o WOW. Please, please, please do not become a doctor. I will tell you that I HAVE BEEN POOR. I HAVE BEEN HOMELESS. My mom went to college forever to get student loans to keep the bills paid and she was out hunting caribou and grouse to feed us. I remember hshe used to be happy when she hit a grouse with the car because it was an easy and free meal for us. I went without going to the dentist for 9 years because I didn't have issues and my mom couldn't afford to take us for preventative care. My mom was NEVER on welfare. WTF planet you have come from is beyond me but I surely don't condone writing Tylenol because Medicaid will pay for it "just because". Yes, the welfare folks definitely have an air of entitlement and I find it personally sickening.

Now don't think that I don't have a heart, because those who are truly in need I will bend over backwards for. Like the guy who walked into urgent care wearing a cast shoe and a ortho boot because he didn't have shoes, hadn't had a shower in weeks, or decent food. He got a nail trim, a free meal from the hospital, a shower in the clinic while waiting for ortho, and I gave him my own tennis shoes. BTW that guy had been walking on a broken leg for a few weeks.

Today I had a guy who was private pay with a huge abscess that he waited a month to treat because he didn't have the money. You bet he will come in for wound care and repack at no charge because it is the right thing to do.

Or the time I was in Southeast Alaska and I had a 19 y/o kid come in with a serious eye infection and serous eye pain. The nearest eye doctor was 8 hours by ferry or a plane ride a way. The kid had no money. I turned in my airline miles and got him a ticket that day for him to get the help I could not provide given my lack of knowledge and no specialist support. His parents paid me back with fresh caught king crab.

So... Miss thing who lives in the projects with her tight booty clothes, cell phone, blingy nails and smart ass unruly brood of 6 kids in my book can fork out $2 for an F**ing bottle of children's Tylenol.

 

[TheTao]

Cabinbuilder, I hope to hell you don't treat Black patients.

And since you're so comfortable telling me NOT to become a Doctor, why don't you stop being one since you think so little of miss thing who lives in the projects, yet celebrate and favor her rural White counterpart.

So Didymus, ask Cabin here what the difference between urban and rural poor. Or just accept that one type of poverty isn't acceptable due to the race of the folks who live there.

 

[didymus]

So Didymus, ask Cabin here what the difference between urban and rural poor. Or just accept that one type of poverty isn't acceptable due to the race of the folks who live there.

Um. There are tons of white, urban poor. As I have indicated several times now (and even directly suggested), I don't think you have any real experience among the poor, and you have created an idealized, romanticized view of them--and of poverty--that is so common among white progressives. This is especially evident with you conflating urban and rural poverty, mischaracterizing the views of people on this thread, and demonstrating a massive bias in your views that precludes you from thinking reasonably about the arguments.

But this has turned into a pissing contest and I'm not terribly interested in continuing it. Let's try to get back on topic.

 

[QofQuimica]

But this has turned into a pissing contest.

Agree. This line of discussion is nonproductive, and the OP's question has been long abandoned. Time to close it down.