Patients and the race card

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I am a fairly new nurse and many of my co-workers have run into situations where a patient pulls the race card on them. This has not yet happened to me, but I'm sure with time it will.

Just wondering how others have handled this type of situation and how patients have reacted.

Thanks!

Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.
Can I please interject something here? I was attempting to explain to a black patient yesterday who was complaining about having had an EJ placed by someone in the ED, and also had a peripheral IV placed in her AC. The AC line infiltrated and they proceeded to use the EJ. Afterwards, the EJ site developed dark scarring and a small keloid. While I tried to explain to this pt that dark skin is more prone to keloids, she rolled her eyes and said "Watch it, you are treading on thin ice" and then said "just leave it alone". I am NOT in any way a racist, and my feelings were hurt because she assumed that since I differentiated dark skin vs light skin, I was degrading her, or at least separating black from white. Finally, I told her that it was in the books, look up keloid and see for herself. Some people just want to be divas, and this was one. Did I say anything prejudicial? Nope, just giving her the facts, in as nice a way as I could. I did have a witness who totally agreed that this pt was looking for trouble..

This is way over the top. It's statistically proven that certain health conditions are more prevalent in certain ethnic populations and though the majority already know this, they'll still look for any possible way to be ignorant themselves. It's sort of like "crying wolf", it makes the real and valid accusations less credible which certainly is not doing them, or their culture, any favours.

This happened in my nursing class when the teacher attempted to tell us that Diabetes was more common in black people. In a class being taught by a black lady. This kind of stuff does make the valid situation less credible.

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WOW, Now I remember why I stopped coming to this site for so long. This belief that nurses ar some magical sort of person-to give & not take, to treat everone fair, "We" see past 'this or that'. Give me a break people. Stop the PC madness. Everone knows what 'race card' is. I have been an RN for 4 yrs & see it on a regular basis.Get your heads out of your preceived 'nursing utopia.'

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OP: Some of the comments have stated what to say in a professional manner and I agree with them! Take this to heart: In my world there is no such thing as "the race card"... I take each person as an individual and treat each incident separately. I do not lump people together, especially not over one or two incidents and say "oh well, that's how they all are!" For example, would you want to be held accountable for what another nurse does, or are you an individual who happens to be a nurse and want be held accountable for your own actions. This is the same with the people you meet, work with, or take care of...What I am trying to say is basically this... you will have some co-workers who will want you to be on their side and think like them, realize as an individual you are not obligated to be on their side...you are there to give the best possible care that is in your power, anything else has nothing to do with you. Remember ignorance comes in all colors, shapes and sizes and people say ugly things out of fear of the unknown or they just don't know any better... I have been called the N-word by elderly whites and that did not deter me from doing my job...they still received the same care as everyone else... Bottom line, as a nurse you will need to grow a thick skin because you are dealing with the public as well as cranky co-workers and demeaning doctors...you will also meet people who will make your day with just a smile - it all evens out in the end...So hang in there... You can do it!

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
The only patient I've ever had pull a "race card" on me (talk about an antiquated term....) was a Caucasian gentleman in his late 70s who only wanted "Irish" nurses working on him! He actually asked everyone what their "nationality" was....I told him I was American and proud of it! When looking at my last name (which is Irish--I am Irish on both sides) he looked at me and said "I bet you married into that name...you're probably a dumb"....I won't repeat what he said. I smiled and said well you're stuck with me and I will take very good care of you.

Irish, huh? He had to have been a tad "off" to think there are very many of all anything these days. It might have been amusing to add an O to everyone's name and leave it at that. Ms O' Garcia, etc. In my case, I could have said that I was about 25% Irish so I could be his nurse for 3 hours.

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WOW, Now I remember why I stopped coming to this site for so long. This belief that nurses ar some magical sort of person-to give & not take, to treat everone fair, "We" see past 'this or that'. Give me a break people. Stop the PC madness. Everone knows what 'race card' is. I have been an RN for 4 yrs & see it on a regular basis.Get your heads out of your preceived 'nursing utopia.'

No it is not a "nursing utopia" as we do not live in an utopia world at all...the bottom line is to act professional at all times and treat everyone as you would like to be treated...whatever your feelings may be on the subject, you have to leave them at home where they belong...and that is valid in any profession...Not "PC madness" but actual good old fashion home training.

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Specializes in Oncology; med/surg; geriatric; OB; CM.
Irish, huh? He had to have been a tad "off" to think there are very many of all anything these days. It might have been amusing to add an O to everyone's name and leave it at that. Ms O' Garcia, etc. In my case, I could have said that I was about 25% Irish so I could be his nurse for 3 hours.

Thank You! That was an excellent comeback!! I never think of things like that until later!:yeah:

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Specializes in Med/Surg.
understand, when we hurt, it seems no one cares. i was a fresh post-op and was denied to be medicated as ordered.

i was a new post-op the nurse stated," you do not need percocet for such a surgery, i can give you tylenol." we do not make this stuff up. we are treated differently by clients, managers, banks, loan officers, patients, teachers, police officers, the news media, military, and on and on. doctors, lawyers, dogs, politicians, voters, employers, taxi cab operators, elevator operators, older women, cartoon artist, car sales men, and other nurses.

i am done with this forum and post.

i hope you understand what a disservice you do to yourself and to other members of your race when you make statements like this. you assume you are treated differently. what makes you think that anyone else asking that particular nurse for pain meds wouldn't have gotten the same response?

i am speechless. that doesn't happen often.

edited to add my original thought, which i couldn't seem to get together in my head when i posted: when you assume that "others" have or will treat you differently because of your race, you are being .... racist. sorry. but it's no better than what you accuse "everyone else" of being.

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Those are Sissykims personal subjective observations. Why does she have to consider that she might be doing a disservice to an entire race of people by stating how she feels? People who claim to judge people as individuals should judge the person who made the comment, not the entire racial group that they are a member of. If she was doing a disservice to anyone it would be herself and not her entire race. She isn't obligated to be a "model minority" or represent anyone but herself.

I hope you understand what a disservice you do to yourself and to other members of your race when you make statements like this. You assume you are treated differently. What makes you think that anyone else asking that particular nurse for pain meds wouldn't have gotten the same response?

I am speechless. That doesn't happen often.

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Thank You! That was an excellent comeback!! I never think of things like that until later!:yeah:

Me neither. My usual "go to" response right when these things occur is brain freeze followed by furrowed brow and hasty exit. :)

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I am a black RN, and I believe a patient along with her daughter, did not want me to be their nurse due to my appearance or race. I can't think of any other reason. They complained to the house supervisor, because I asked if the patient could move her toilet hat, since we were entering the bathroom, and I had no gloves on. I guess they got offended by that, and reported me. When I returned to apologize, they called the house supervisor again, and I was yelled at.

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Specializes in ER, House Supervision.
It's a FACT that some minorities, in particular American blacks, do receive less care in SOME situations than whites. There has been a lot of research done on this lately:

Blacks Less Likely Than Whites, Hispanics to Get Evidence-Based Stroke Care:

Blacks less likely than whites, Hispanics to get evidence-based stroke care

Blacks, Hispanics and other groups less likely to get strong pain medications in hospital Emergency Departments:

Blacks, Hispanics and other groups less likely to get strong pain medications in hospital Emergency Departments

That's just a couple of articles I picked up in a 30-second google search.

So sometimes when people "play the race card" there is a REASON behind it.

That said, we all know people who see racism where there isn't any. People are people, some are racist and some aren't. That includes patients, nurses AND nursing students. The best we can all do is try to be objective and not let our own biases get in the way of giving good care.

I would like to respectfully disagree with the posting about Blacks and Hispanics receiving lesser care, as these two posts refer to the prescriber not the nursing staff. Granted it is part of the nurses job to be proactive for the patient, however non-advance practice nurses are not allowed to proscribe medications.:twocents:

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All the people posting stupid PC answers like "I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm so offended" need a serious reality check. In the real world, there really are a lot of people out there who attribute many negative things that happen to them to their minority status. If you wanna play ignorant utopia world, go ahead, but stop with the essays trying to put the original poster down. It's plain annoying to read, but if you're looking for someone to clap and tell you how "right" ya'll are and you're really teaching everyone a lesson...grats. :yelclap: (And reading farther back, I'm happy to see many other people say pretty much the same thing.)

Oh well, this is a job where you have to deal with people and you have to suck it up and develop the interpersonal skills to deal with it or it will be very hard. Something that really works is "I see where you are coming from." You don't have to really see, you can think it's the stupidest opinion ever...it just helps to move things along with annoying people.

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