Racial jokes from attending

[mosche]

<kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya, kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya> come on Mosche, sing it with me

<Holding candle, swaying>

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[J1515]

Im not trying to stop anyone from doing anything. Ridiculous for you to even suggest that. I didnt attack anyone personally. I responded to the two posts previous to mine. If you actually read my posts I agreed that what your attending was doing was reprehensible, But I thought that you handled it poorly as well. "You did what you had to do" You may think that but I think most people would say do it in a more professional manner.

I'm glad someone else recognized this, as it was bothering me that everybody was saying "nice job, <pat on back>" after the OP handled this equally as immaturely and unprofessionally as the attending. As if the uncomfortable silence in the room after his first retaliatory comment wasn't enough, he brings it up again. The doctor said he understood and it wouldn't happen again, yet the OP still felt the need to try to bring it up a third and fourth time. All this time, all you had to do was pull him aside **in private** and say "I don't mean to be rude or overstep my boundary, but your jokes are a little offensive and I'd appreciate if you would cut it out, thanks." Problem solved - politely, maturely, professionally, and while nobody can say for sure, it probably wouldn't have effected your evaluation.

 

[mmmmdonuts]

She shoved her ID badge towards me and said, "I have an Arab last name, maybe that will help you treat me with less respect."

did you ask her why she wasnt at home making more kids to blow themselves up for allah?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

---< enter the elevator >---

Tcw2u: "Remember when I humiliated you?"

Attending: "Yeah, I get it, I won't do it anymore, drop it!"

Tcw2u: "No, I'm not quite done humiliating you for something I should've brought up days ago, but was too scared to."

Attending: "Ok, I suppose I'll just stand here and be dressed down by an equally tactless a@@hole then."

Wow, what an excellent post. This should have been the closer!

 

[tupac_don]

I need some advice and opinions about how to approach this situation. I have been working with the same attending for the past 3 weeks. This attending likes to joke around and "have fun" at work, but however I think some of his jokes are inappropriate. During my time on the rotation a conversation came up about where we were from. I told everyone on the service that I was born in Hong Kong and moved to the states when I was 11 years old. There has been numerous instances when I am doing a procedure with him where he is supervising me, and he has made racial/racist jokes. One such joke goes "you need to use more local anesthetic than that, I know in china they try to conserve whatever they can so that they have enough to go around for the billions of people...". This was directly in front of a patient who was conscious, not sedated, and in front of another resident. I just laughed it off since I was concentrating on the procedure and the patient. Another example of his joke was I mentioned that I like getting Starbucks Frappuccino, since he claims himself to be a coffee connoisseur. He says isn't that expensive and how can you afford buying that all the time. I just told him I owe so much debt from school loans, what's another 5 bucks. So the next time I do a procedure with him there was a comment about how expensive a piece of equipment we were using was, he says, "that's ok, we can get the resident to pay for it, since he probably runs all these sweatshops back in china in order to be able to afford drinking frappuccinos all the time". Again this was in front of a conscious, minimally sedated patient, another resident, and nurses. One of the nurses heard this and asked me, are you going to take that from him? My response was what can I do? He's an attending...., and I'm gloved for a procedure. These are only 2 examples of racial comments he has made.

So my question is whether you guys think this is inappropriate and unprofessional, and how I should go about stopping this. He is making these comments/jokes almost on a daily basis now, in front of the patient and other residents/nurses, and makes me uncomfortable. He thinks he's funny but I'm not sure others feel the same. I also don't want to jeopardize my future career by confronting him and have the rest of the department think that I am a problem resident who can't take a joke.

I only have 3 more days left on this rotation but I am sure I will run into him again on other rotations. I'm trying to decide whether to let it slide or confront him next time he makes another racial joke. I need some advice please.... Has anyone else been in similar shoes???

Why dont' you joke back with him. I dont' think he has anything personal against you, he is just giving you a hard time, razzing you a bit. I wouldn't be a tell tale, and say something just b/c that might breed bad blood and he is in a position of power. But you can always say something to him. YOu could of been like, I thought white people owned all the sweat shops in china. I think if you get him couple of times, he will accept you more. You can also wait it out. But if its really becoming unberable, I would just confront him, in a very polite manner and say, look "I know you are just kidding, but I don't like some of the jokes and it makes me feel uncomfortable, I hope you understand". I mean if this guy is A-okay he should stop it. Another thing you can do is just give him a dirty look when he says a joke, by no means don't laugh. To tell you the truth I think this guy and especially if its surgery, probably doesn't even realize this bothers you, and he is probably just being himself. Good luck.

 

[tupac_don]

I need some advice and opinions about how to approach this situation. I have been working with the same attending for the past 3 weeks. This attending likes to joke around and "have fun" at work, but however I think some of his jokes are inappropriate. During my time on the rotation a conversation came up about where we were from. I told everyone on the service that I was born in Hong Kong and moved to the states when I was 11 years old. There has been numerous instances when I am doing a procedure with him where he is supervising me, and he has made racial/racist jokes. One such joke goes "you need to use more local anesthetic than that, I know in china they try to conserve whatever they can so that they have enough to go around for the billions of people...". This was directly in front of a patient who was conscious, not sedated, and in front of another resident. I just laughed it off since I was concentrating on the procedure and the patient. Another example of his joke was I mentioned that I like getting Starbucks Frappuccino, since he claims himself to be a coffee connoisseur. He says isn't that expensive and how can you afford buying that all the time. I just told him I owe so much debt from school loans, what's another 5 bucks. So the next time I do a procedure with him there was a comment about how expensive a piece of equipment we were using was, he says, "that's ok, we can get the resident to pay for it, since he probably runs all these sweatshops back in china in order to be able to afford drinking frappuccinos all the time". Again this was in front of a conscious, minimally sedated patient, another resident, and nurses. One of the nurses heard this and asked me, are you going to take that from him? My response was what can I do? He's an attending...., and I'm gloved for a procedure. These are only 2 examples of racial comments he has made.

So my question is whether you guys think this is inappropriate and unprofessional, and how I should go about stopping this. He is making these comments/jokes almost on a daily basis now, in front of the patient and other residents/nurses, and makes me uncomfortable. He thinks he's funny but I'm not sure others feel the same. I also don't want to jeopardize my future career by confronting him and have the rest of the department think that I am a problem resident who can't take a joke.

I only have 3 more days left on this rotation but I am sure I will run into him again on other rotations. I'm trying to decide whether to let it slide or confront him next time he makes another racial joke. I need some advice please.... Has anyone else been in similar shoes???

Why dont' you joke back with him. I dont' think he has anything personal against you, he is just giving you a hard time, razzing you a bit. I wouldn't be a tell tale, and say something just b/c that might breed bad blood and he is in a position of power. But you can always say something to him. YOu could of been like, I thought white people owned all the sweat shops in china. I think if you get him couple of times, he will accept you more. You can also wait it out. But if its really becoming unberable, I would just confront him, in a very polite manner and say, look "I know you are just kidding, but I don't like some of the jokes and it makes me feel uncomfortable, I hope you understand". I mean if this guy is A-okay he should stop it. Another thing you can do is just give him a dirty look when he says a joke, by no means don't laugh. To tell you the truth I think this guy and especially if its surgery, probably doesn't even realize this bothers you, and he is probably just being himself. Good luck.

 

[SergeGainsbourg]

Wow! Five pages of debate and the issue still isn't solved?

 

[tupac_don]

Well the racial comments continued again today as I had expected. I stressed over this all last night about how I was going to approach this. Another racial comment he made yesterday was while I was doing a thoracic epidural with the upper level resident, he was mentioning how I always direct the needle superiorly and it might actually be to my benefit in a thoracic epidural. The attending then went on to say that "yeah chinese people always overcompensate". This was yesterday before I posted my original message and again I tried to laugh it off.

This morning at breakfast as we were leaving the cafeteria somehow he felt compelled to tell the student nurse anesthetist that "yeah yesterday I was saying how the chinese over compensate", off of a totally unrelated subject. The student nurse had no idea was he was talking about and there was an uncomfortable silence. I then politely went on to say that yeah he's making another uncomfortable joke. He tried to justify what he said by saying he was in a "very multicultural fraternity in college" where there was a Japanese guy who they always joke with and there was no limit to what they would joke about, I'm sure race related. I didn't pursue the matter further and had hoped that my comment about his uncomfortable joke would make him stop.

Later that day I was doing another thoracic epidural and at the end of the procedure he again make an off color remark about the chinese in front of the patient, RN, the upper level resident, and a nursing student. This time I didn't let it slide and called him out as a racist. The RN who was holding the patient for me asked me what he was talking about, and I said "He's making another racial joke again. He always does this when I am doing a procedure. It might have been funny the first couple of times but he keeps making these racial jokes and now it's just getting offensive." She agreed with me and said yeah I'm sure it gets old after awhile. There was another uncomfortable silence in the room as I was taping up the patient.

I wasn't sure whether he got the message; so as me, the upper level resident, and the racist attending were heading back upstairs waiting for the elevator, I said "Yeah I don't appreciate these racial comments anymore, they are not funny and are starting to get offensive". He started getting really defensive and raised his voice in agitation and said "Yes I heard you the first time! It's ok just drop it!" My response to this was "No I am not going to drop this because this is not right. This needs to stop because I don't want this to happen again to anyone else, it's inappropriate and unprofessional especially in front of the patient and staff...." He again raised his voice to an anger yell now, cut me off and said "I SAID JUST DROP IT, IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN, YOU WON'T HEAR ANOTHER WORD. MY PARENTS ARE FROM POLAND AND ITALY SO I AM NOT RACIST, SO LET'S JUST DROP IT". I tried to finish what I had started saying but I felt like I was pushing the envelope and don't think I could have rebuttled with anything else without it escalating into something physical. So finally I said FINE.

I believe that his behavior was very immature, especially the fact that when I tried to confront him he basically completely shut down and did not want to discuss things like an adult in a professional manner. While I really wanted to give him a piece of my mind I did not want to jeopardize my career and risk me completely losing my temper and doing something I regret. This whole exchange occurred with the upper level resident present and he witnessed everything including most of the other racist jokes he has made in the past.

While we were back upstairs I was still pretty upset and was talking to the upper level resident about what just happened in the elevator and he apologized to me, even though he has taken no part in these jokes. I also told the SRNA about what happened downstairs and she also agreed that the racial jokes were starting to get old. I took comfort from the fact that my upper level apologized to me meaning that he too thought all the racial jokes were inappropriate.

I truly believe this attending is racist. He is from a small town in Alabama, also he was in the ROTC just so that he didn't have to pay for medical school. He also asked me about a week ago when I first told him I was from Hong Kong "so if America were to goto war with china which side would you be fighting on?" I thought that was a really uncomfortable question. First of all when I was still living in Hong Kong as a kid it was still part of Great Britain, but after 1997 it was turned back over to China. I'm not sure he understands this. Plus I am an American citizen, spent the past 17 years of my live in the US, so my first response was well I went into the health profession hoping that I will never have to fight anyone of any nationality. He didn't let the issue go and pressed on to say "no but seriously what if you weren't in the health profession and we were at war with china?" I said since I am a US citizen I would fight for the US and not for China, which Hong Kong was not a part of when I moved to the US. I just thought that was a really uncomfortable question and that was pretty much the beginning of all these racial comments about me being a chinese guy. Later that day he told the SRNA "good news, we figured out that our resident will be fighting on our side if we ever goto war with china." He could not see anything else past my outter appearance of black hair and black eyes, but only a chinese guy who "we flew in from china to work for us", another comment he made to a patient. It also really bothered me that he never apologized for his actions after I confronted him. It seems he thought it was ok to make all those racist comments.

I don't think I can change the way this attending is who is now in his late 40s and has the maturity of a 13 year old. Further argument with him would be fruitless. I am thinking about writing a letter of complaint to my chairman and program director about what happened, so at least if he gives me a bad evaluation they would know the true reason why. Also our chairman is a big advocate about cultural sensitivity and actually made all the 2nd year residents take a medical spanish course, so hopefully he would understand and will be on my side.

I really hope this won't put a bad mark on me when I need to ask them for letters when I apply for fellowships/jobs. I just don't want to give them the impression that I am difficult to work with or worse yet a troublemaker. I don't have any intention of destroying this attending's career, and I'm sure he can find a job somewhere else anyway. I do want to make him realize that what he did was wrong and to prevent this from occurring again to any other minority residents working under him.

I hope I dealt with the situation as professionally as I could. I used my values and what I felt was right and confronted him. I may have prevented him from future racial harrassment of minority residents, but I'm sad to say that he will likely stay racist the rest of his life and no one can change that. It disappoints me that in such educated professions like medicine there are people like these who are totally insensitive, probably many more who have the same mentality but just not as ignorant as to say it in the open.

Anyway 2 more days left on the rotation, if he makes another racist comment to me he might end up on the news. But I am really glad that I confronted him today

I dont' think you dealt with it professionally at all. You exploded, by calling him a racists straight out. Not professional. You didn't do it privately, but in front of everyone. You lost your cool. As far as him being racist, not sure I agree with you, I just think he was brought up and his experiences were such that this was accepted. Not racist but ignorant. If he really was racist, he wouldn't make jokes, but would do just ignore you and give you a very bad evaluation. This guy is an old school surgeon, who is obviously very boisterous and opinonated, you just don't know how to handle him.

I do however understand your point too, he made you feel uncomfortable, but you really didn't know how to handle it, so you exploded. And to do this with two days to go, bad move jack.

 

[SergeGainsbourg]

Hey guys. I read a bit of this thread and I think you might be able to help me out. I'm doing some christmas shopping. I need to get a present for a friend of mine who happens to be a troll. I thought I might get him some kind of fancy delicacy for him to snack on. What kind of food do you think trolls like best - is it conflict or just plain attention? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[sohsie]

I dont' think you dealt with it professionally at all. You exploded, by calling him a racists straight out. Not professional. You didn't do it privately, but in front of everyone. You lost your cool. As far as him being racist, not sure I agree with you, I just think he was brought up and his experiences were such that this was accepted. Not racist but ignorant. If he really was racist, he wouldn't make jokes, but would do just ignore you and give you a very bad evaluation. This guy is an old school surgeon, who is obviously very boisterous and opinonated, you just don't know how to handle him.

I do however understand your point too, he made you feel uncomfortable, but you really didn't know how to handle it, so you exploded. And to do this with two days to go, bad move jack.

I love all of the Monday morning quarterbacking that has gone on here. The OP states that they were subjected to this over and over again in front of patients. What planet does this attending live on that he thinks its OK to make fun of someone's race in a situation like that. Multiple times. The OP was mulling between trying to ride it out versus "dealing with it professionally." However, quite understandibly, when the surgeon kept egging the OP on, cracking inappropriate jokes in front of two different patients, she reacted.

I guarantee you that the OP wasn't the first person to be the object of this surgeon's abuse. And I bet previous people may have tried to talk to him in private. However, I also guarantee you that because she called him out publicly in front of nurses and patients, he won't be doing it again. And his otherwise future victims have the OP to thank for sparing them his abuse.

 

[tcw2u]

Hey guys. I read a bit of this thread and I think you might be able to help me out. I'm doing some christmas shopping. I need to get a present for a friend of mine who happens to be a troll. I thought I might get him some kind of fancy delicacy for him to snack on. What kind of food do you think trolls like best - is it conflict or just plain attention? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Nicely said, I haven't read this thread for 3 weeks now because there are actually things called work, reading, being a doctor, and taking care of patients instead of trolling on these forums. I rarely post on these forums and when I did I was simply asking for advice, but didn't realize how many trolls there were in these forums that will post things just for the heck of it. Anyway thanks everyone for the opinions and I'm happy to say I have gone on with my life and have stopped worrying about this issue, but I do hope that I won't have to face it again, because I don't regret the way I dealt with it at all. Merry christmas all

 

[jetproppilot]

Well the racial comments continued again today as I had expected. I stressed over this all last night about how I was going to approach this. Another racial comment he made yesterday was while I was doing a thoracic epidural with the upper level resident, he was mentioning how I always direct the needle superiorly and it might actually be to my benefit in a thoracic epidural. The attending then went on to say that "yeah chinese people always overcompensate". This was yesterday before I posted my original message and again I tried to laugh it off.

This morning at breakfast as we were leaving the cafeteria somehow he felt compelled to tell the student nurse anesthetist that "yeah yesterday I was saying how the chinese over compensate", off of a totally unrelated subject. The student nurse had no idea was he was talking about and there was an uncomfortable silence. I then politely went on to say that yeah he's making another uncomfortable joke. He tried to justify what he said by saying he was in a "very multicultural fraternity in college" where there was a Japanese guy who they always joke with and there was no limit to what they would joke about, I'm sure race related. I didn't pursue the matter further and had hoped that my comment about his uncomfortable joke would make him stop.

Later that day I was doing another thoracic epidural and at the end of the procedure he again make an off color remark about the chinese in front of the patient, RN, the upper level resident, and a nursing student. This time I didn't let it slide and called him out as a racist. The RN who was holding the patient for me asked me what he was talking about, and I said "He's making another racial joke again. He always does this when I am doing a procedure. It might have been funny the first couple of times but he keeps making these racial jokes and now it's just getting offensive." She agreed with me and said yeah I'm sure it gets old after awhile. There was another uncomfortable silence in the room as I was taping up the patient.

I wasn't sure whether he got the message; so as me, the upper level resident, and the racist attending were heading back upstairs waiting for the elevator, I said "Yeah I don't appreciate these racial comments anymore, they are not funny and are starting to get offensive". He started getting really defensive and raised his voice in agitation and said "Yes I heard you the first time! It's ok just drop it!" My response to this was "No I am not going to drop this because this is not right. This needs to stop because I don't want this to happen again to anyone else, it's inappropriate and unprofessional especially in front of the patient and staff...." He again raised his voice to an anger yell now, cut me off and said "I SAID JUST DROP IT, IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN, YOU WON'T HEAR ANOTHER WORD. MY PARENTS ARE FROM POLAND AND ITALY SO I AM NOT RACIST, SO LET'S JUST DROP IT". I tried to finish what I had started saying but I felt like I was pushing the envelope and don't think I could have rebuttled with anything else without it escalating into something physical. So finally I said FINE.

I believe that his behavior was very immature, especially the fact that when I tried to confront him he basically completely shut down and did not want to discuss things like an adult in a professional manner. While I really wanted to give him a piece of my mind I did not want to jeopardize my career and risk me completely losing my temper and doing something I regret. This whole exchange occurred with the upper level resident present and he witnessed everything including most of the other racist jokes he has made in the past.

While we were back upstairs I was still pretty upset and was talking to the upper level resident about what just happened in the elevator and he apologized to me, even though he has taken no part in these jokes. I also told the SRNA about what happened downstairs and she also agreed that the racial jokes were starting to get old. I took comfort from the fact that my upper level apologized to me meaning that he too thought all the racial jokes were inappropriate.

I truly believe this attending is racist. He is from a small town in Alabama, also he was in the ROTC just so that he didn't have to pay for medical school. He also asked me about a week ago when I first told him I was from Hong Kong "so if America were to goto war with china which side would you be fighting on?" I thought that was a really uncomfortable question. First of all when I was still living in Hong Kong as a kid it was still part of Great Britain, but after 1997 it was turned back over to China. I'm not sure he understands this. Plus I am an American citizen, spent the past 17 years of my live in the US, so my first response was well I went into the health profession hoping that I will never have to fight anyone of any nationality. He didn't let the issue go and pressed on to say "no but seriously what if you weren't in the health profession and we were at war with china?" I said since I am a US citizen I would fight for the US and not for China, which Hong Kong was not a part of when I moved to the US. I just thought that was a really uncomfortable question and that was pretty much the beginning of all these racial comments about me being a chinese guy. Later that day he told the SRNA "good news, we figured out that our resident will be fighting on our side if we ever goto war with china." He could not see anything else past my outter appearance of black hair and black eyes, but only a chinese guy who "we flew in from china to work for us", another comment he made to a patient. It also really bothered me that he never apologized for his actions after I confronted him. It seems he thought it was ok to make all those racist comments.

I don't think I can change the way this attending is who is now in his late 40s and has the maturity of a 13 year old. Further argument with him would be fruitless. I am thinking about writing a letter of complaint to my chairman and program director about what happened, so at least if he gives me a bad evaluation they would know the true reason why. Also our chairman is a big advocate about cultural sensitivity and actually made all the 2nd year residents take a medical spanish course, so hopefully he would understand and will be on my side.

I really hope this won't put a bad mark on me when I need to ask them for letters when I apply for fellowships/jobs. I just don't want to give them the impression that I am difficult to work with or worse yet a troublemaker. I don't have any intention of destroying this attending's career, and I'm sure he can find a job somewhere else anyway. I do want to make him realize that what he did was wrong and to prevent this from occurring again to any other minority residents working under him.

I hope I dealt with the situation as professionally as I could. I used my values and what I felt was right and confronted him. I may have prevented him from future racial harrassment of minority residents, but I'm sad to say that he will likely stay racist the rest of his life and no one can change that. It disappoints me that in such educated professions like medicine there are people like these who are totally insensitive, probably many more who have the same mentality but just not as ignorant as to say it in the open.

Anyway 2 more days left on the rotation, if he makes another racist comment to me he might end up on the news. But I am really glad that I confronted him today

Are you sure youre making the right decision?

Are you a martyr?

If so, carry on.

If not, back down.

There are ignorant people on this planet, and at your stage of training you have only experienced the tip of the iceberg.

Its not worth it for you to make an issue of this. Your goal is to get to the end of your training without problems.

Laugh the dude off as an insecure a sshole and go on to your next mission.