An Asian-American physician who sparked debate when she revealed some white patients in Oregon had refused to be treated by her because of her ethnicity, has revealed she has experienced the same thing in every state she has worked.
The Independent reports that writing in the aftermath of the neo-Naz-led violence in Charlottesville, Esther Choo, a doctor at Portland’s Oregon Health & Science University, said there were a lot of “white nationalists” in her state and two or three times a year, a patient would insist on being treated by a white person – even if it was the intern.
Yet Choo said that while Oregon had a history of white supremacism, despite the relatively progressive views of the residents of the capital, Portland, she had encountered similar incidents in every place she had worked as a doctor – Connecticut, California and Massachusetts.
“There is a little bit of racism everywhere you go. These things happen everywhere – it’s not isolated to one state,” she is quoted in the report as saying.
Choo, who has more than 15 years experience, said she had not written or spoken out about her experiences before. “It’s not something you come out of a hospital wanting to talk about,” she said.
[link url="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/esther-choo-white-patients-refuse-treatment-asian-american-doctor-racism-tweets-every-state-a7911346.html"]The Independent report[/link]