White Male Doctors Are Apparently Killing Patients

WASHINGTON - May 16, 2023 - PRLog -- A 2020 study found that Black babies are nearly 3 times more likely to die if cared for by White specialists than Black ones.

It's apparently the care provided by two different races of doctors.

Now a new study just published in the medical journal JAMA Surgery found that women are 32% more likely to die post-op if their surgeon is a man.

In  lawsuits, the law uses the "but for" test to determine cause.

In other words, if but for event X, Y result would not have occurred, then X is said to be a "cause" of Y.  So, for example, if failing to provide a certain treatment resulted in death, the failure is regarded as a legal cause of the death.

By this definition, the deaths of many Black babies is caused by their White physicians, and the deaths of many female patients is caused by their male physicians.

While it may be very difficult if not impossible to prove in any individual case how a White physician was negligent in providing less effective life-saving care to a Black infant than a Black doctor would have provided, or how a male surgeon's actions caused the death of a female patient, it may be possible to bring a legal action based upon this evidence alone, at least under the D.C. Human Rights Act, says Banzhaf, who has won over 100 cases under this statute.

The reason is that the law requires only that the "effect or consequence" of an action produce a discriminatory result.  In other words, it is not necessary to cite individual cases, nor to explain - much less prove - the causal relationship.

Thus D.C. Hospital X could be sued under this statute if the mortality rate for Black infants under the care of White doctors was substantially greater than the mortality rate for Black babies cared for by White doctors.  In such a situation, the hospital might have to dispute the statistical result or try to provide a legally sufficient justification for the huge disparity based solely upon race.

If at D.C. Hospital Y, the post-op death rate for female patients was much higher for those with male surgeons than for those who had female surgeons, the same result could apply.

Aside from the grief and sorrow and direct costs of so many needless deaths, there can be huge medical and other costs; costs which he says are borne in large part by taxpayers if Medicare, Medicaid, and other governmental-reimbursement programs are involved, as well as in higher health insurance premiums.

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