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Indian medical students and doctors in the NHS

I'm a medical student of Indian origin and just started my clinical placement in a very busy hospital in north England.

And for the first time in my life yesterday I was subjected to a strange experience. I was in a pair allocated to a teaching session with this white male surgeon. I am not sure whether it was my skin colour or accent (I'm an international student but does not have a thick accent either) but he totally blanked me out, choosing to make eye-contact only with my other female white counterpart for the entire day. Now I totally ignored that since I do understand that people have their own preferences and such. However I saw him today and he gave me a really evil stare. And looking past the few months, there've been many such incidents, particularly from doctors and teachers of white ethnicity.

Is it because it's the north of the country? I've lived in and worked in hospitals in London but this is a first.

It's interesting to know if anyone else have had such similar experiences. And if so what do you do about it? I'm trying not to take it to my heart but when you suddenly realise what exactly you've just experienced, the question 'Why?' echoes everywhere.
Oh and apologies beforehand if this offended anyone.

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Reply 1

RPool

We are legion.

Sorry I've nothing useful to say.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 2

nexttime

Original post by Laurasurreal

... he totally blanked me out, choosing to make eye-contact only with my other female white counterpart for the entire day.

Was she hot?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 3

Laurasurreal

Original post by nexttime

Was she hot?

Haha I wouldn't say hot but she's beautiful yes. I did consider that, but we were scrubbed-up throughout.

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Reply 4

nexttime

Original post by Laurasurreal

Haha I wouldn't say hot but she's beautiful yes. I did consider that, but we were scrubbed-up throughout.

Just how he likes 'em.

Reply 5

Helenia

I don't think "the north" is necessarily more racist than anywhere else in the UK - there will be some areas that are worse than others, and London is undeniably the most diverse place, but there are significant non-white communities in lots of northern areas, so I don't think you can blame it on geography.

I'm a white Brit, so I can't realistically comment on racism in healthcare as I'm far less likely to see it. Plenty of casual sexism though - and not just male -> female. What I would say is that there are thousands of Indian doctors in the NHS, so it's not like you're particularly unusual, and I think your experience is more likely down to one odd bloke rather than an institutional bias. Or it might just be that she was hot and he's rude.

Reply 6

macpatgh-Sheldon

As mentioned by others above, the guy who was supposed to teach you was probably a singled out person with an inferiority complex. I myself trained in medicine several years ago, and never faced such a problem, even though there was a certain perceived racism in that there were very few Indian consultants some years ago, whereas we virtually run the NHS now.

The other point to mention is that in general, people in the north are more friendly with everyone, including "foreigners" like us rather than the other way round - let us face it, the so-called Cockney is a very introverted, unrefined species who is always looking for a fight - then again, indigenous Londoners might be quiet because life in London is a rat-race.

M

(edited 6 years ago)

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