I'm half Ghanaian and half British and was wondering how many of you are 'women of color'?

Sethina

Hi1 I'm orginially from Bermuda so that makes me a British woman of color now marired to a fellow from Portsmouth, VA. We live in Chesapeake, VA. I have applied to med school for the fall but havent' heard anything favorable yet. I might not get in. :wave: sorry for the sob story!

Vanessa

Hi Sethina
I am a woman of color. I am black. My children happen to be biracial. My husband is from Germany/Irish-Welsh descent. We are like the United Nations in my family. :yes:

I am Jamaican, Irish, and Portugese. :cloud9:

Hey Bermiegal seems like you could use one of these :crossfingers: for you.

I am a not a woman "of color" but have had interesting thoughts about it in the last few weeks. I work in the South and find the views down here really amazing. For instance, I am leaving this practice soon and am turning over many of my patients to an internist who is from India. Yesterday one of my patients looked at me in dismay and asked "Don't you have anyone who is American?"

I even have several patients who openly say they will not see a "forner." They ask if they will be able to "understand" him. I actually have to explain that he was trained in the US and very qualified for the job. But the most amazing thing is when I tell them I sure am glad they didn't make the same decisions about me being their doctor since my last name is Indian too (my husband is Indian). Only a few manage to look ashamed.

I guess I really understand to some degree the amorphous advantages (at least in the South) that your name and skin color may (or may not) give you.

Amazing.

Very interesting... the reason I ask is because I want to hear more about being a minority AND WOMAN in medicine. At one of my jobs I had an Hawaiian client who spoke in pidgin, he got SOOOOO angry with me because he couldn't understand me. He asked me to SPEEAAKKK ENGLISH so I can understand. Well I was speaking Queen's english so to speak. He just assumed because of the color of my skin that I was talking 'foren'.

Grrgghhh...

Sethina

Sethina,
One interesting story I have regarding that involves some complaining I was doing about patients in the hospital thinking I was their nurse instead of their doctor, simply because I'm female. A classmate of mine (who is black) said it was worse for her. When she went into the patients' room they often handed her their food tray. . .

Uggghhhh :bigmouth:

I am a african american woman(pre med).

I'm biracial, African-American and Italian-American, to be specific!

Funny thing is, everyone in Texas thinks I'm Hispanic! (Texans assume wavy dark hair and medium complexion = Mexican)

I hope that my patients will find it easier to relate to me since everyone seems to see their own ethnicity in my face. (I've been asked if I was part Indian, aboriginal, Islander, etc! )