CNN apparently thinks that the race of your doctor matters.

This literally never occurred to me. Generally, my concern is something much more relevant to the quality of care: how good a doctor is the person who is poking and prodding.

Unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with medical professionals. I had open heart surgery at 37 and a congenital heart condition. I have gotten migraines since I was a baby. And, frankly, I don’t take good care of myself.

So I have a lot of experience with doctors, including a lot of specialists over the years. Of all those doctors I would guess that only about 30% or so were white males, the demographic of which I am a part. For over 20 years my primary care doctors have been women, and I have seen East Asian, South Asian, Russian, Hispanic, and African American doctors.

And I live in Minnesota, which is predominately populated by Whites.

It never once occurred to me to ask for a White male doctor as a substitute for a person whose demographic profile differs from mine. I make no claim that this makes me a better person or “color-blind;” I just want the best damn doctor I can get because I want to live longer than I have a right to given my habits.

CNN, though, is deeply concerned with the racial disparities in the medical profession. And not because Blacks are being denied opportunities to be doctors–there is no evidence that this is the case. Rather, they think that Blacks should see Black doctors.

Encouraging under-represented groups to go to medical school is fine, but telling people that only doctors of their race can properly treat them is sick, dangerous, racist and segregationist.

It never occurred to me that I can't be treated by non-white or non-Jewish doctors.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 23, 2023

“Experts warn that this is hurting public health.”

How, exactly? I really would like to know how the ratio of doctors to racial groups makes any difference to the quality of health care that anybody gets.

Every explanation I, with my limited imagination, can come up with for assuming this implies that the race of a physician should concern every patient. Whites should demand White doctors, and Blacks should demand Blacks. And so on.

Do they really mean to imply this? And if not, then why should we worry about the racial makeup of the medical profession?

Differences in the racial makeup of various professions are hardly shocking, and there are a variety of reasons why they occur. Obviously, prior discrimination might be one reason, but there are many others. Many professions have demographic clusters; police and firefighters are disproportionately Irish, for instance, in Boston and New York.

It seems obvious that one of the main reasons why there are disproportionately fewer Black doctors is the poor state of education in our public schools. Getting into medical school is difficult, and since urban schools that serve African Americans are disproportionately awful and graduate students unprepared to excel in STEM fields in particular, a smaller fraction of the graduates will be eligible to enter medical school, assuming they want to.

If that is a reason for the disparities, I invite you to blame the public school unions who have utterly failed to educate these students well, and the parents who allow it to continue.

It may also be there are other cultural reasons–just as the Irish of Boston and New York have more family members in first responder jobs, they are likely to be more inclined to join the professions than the population as a whole.

Who knows? Who cares? I don’t, and neither should anyone else if there is no discrimination involved.

In the ranking of problems Americans face, including Black Americans, this ranks somewhere lower than the annoying glitches we experience when Twitter is slower than we would like. It is hardly a public health crisis.

Once again, it is liberals who are concerned with race more than any other class of people. I wouldn’t consent to be treated by a bad doctor just because they are White and male, as I am. In fact, the only doctors I have ever transferred away from due to dissatisfaction with their care are White and male.

I even rejected a White male M.D. in favor of a White female P.A. because I preferred working with her.

Selecting a provider based on race is insane, and a far bigger threat to one’s personal health than just looking for the best doctor available. If they are Black, then fine. If not, fine.

Just get a good doctor. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that the celebrities at CNN follow that advice.