White Lies, Black Boogeyman
<p>During my second year of medical school, we had a weekly course on medicine and humanities. In it we tackled various social topics and how they played out in healthcare settings — ranging from caregiver burnout to sexism to domestic abuse. The class and its readings provided us with a reprieve from cumbersome histology and pathology lectures, and helped us better understand the pervasive influence of structural issues on medical outcomes.</p>
<p>The director assigned two readings for the week we were to discuss alcoholism. One was an empathic tale explaining how an Irish family patriarch came to struggle with alcohol abuse and the tragic context in which he passed his predilection for imbibing to his young son. The other was a nonfiction story called “Brute” by Richard Selzer, about a white emergency room doctor and his encounter with an intoxicated Black man who had sustained a laceration on his forehead.</p>
<p><a href="https://davidmalebranche.medium.com/white-lies-black-boogeyman-a38a7e7f9ed9"><strong>Website</strong></a></p>
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