Would you pass for another race in med school if you could?

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Assuming you could, would you pass for another race in medical school?

  • No way, I love being me!

    Votes: 7 53.8%
  • If I could get away with it, yes.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No way, being URM is an advantage I am not giving up!

    Votes: 4 30.8%
  • Race doesn't exist.

    Votes: 2 15.4%
  • Yes, I would / have done it before.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes, it would make my med school experience socially easier.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    13

DoctorDrewOutsidetheLines

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Maybe this belongs in the sociopolitical forum, but there are distinct advantages to NOT being AA or URM. Sometimes I ask myself if I would pass for a more accepted race in school if I could based on some of the things I hear about and read about in the news and on forums like this. I don't think I would, but it's interesting to consider.

Would you pass?

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I'm actually quite comfortable in my brown skin.
 
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Me too, but I also think I would have a lot less anger management issues to deal with if I wasn't constantly "proving" myself. Yes, I'm smart. Not "smart for a black woman." It gets old REAL fast.
 
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Nope.

To qualify this, and to legitimize your position, when I was younger I probably would have thought this myself too. I was always the only black person, for everything, so I know it gets old fast. When I was growing up, I got the "You're not like other…", quite a few times — that also gets old real fast. But, as you move up you will meet less people like that. It'll always be there, like other problems, for example doctors or medical students getting called nurses by patients while I'm confused for a doctor. And of course, that can be compounded by being a woman and (dun dun dun) a woman of color. It probably doesn't make you feel any better, but I think it's slowly getting better. Here, at least in my case, people seem to care more what I think than what I look like. But, there will always be people who think of you as the 'other'. I mean, people are still arguing about if the president is American.

On the flip side, I also noticed that I'm terrible at guessing what people think of me. So, I tend to no longer care, and life is now easier. Sometimes, it's easier to ignore someone's ignorance by their good intentions: how you'll deal with patients in the future who insult you while you still give optimum care and repoire.
 
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Me too, but I also think I would have a lot less anger management issues to deal with if I wasn't constantly "proving" myself. Yes, I'm smart. Not "smart for a black woman." It gets old REAL fast.

I think the color of our skin has given us invaluable perspective about the world that we could not have gotten otherwise. Unfortunately, everything comes at a price in this world.
 
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