“It’s not okay to just be okay. You have to be exceptional at your job to make ends meet.”
Though still early in her career, aspiring surgeon Rachael Harlow is already feeling the effects of what she sees as systemic racism in the workplace.
She says ethnic minority doctors are more likely to complain to their bosses and are “severely scrutinized” – and knowing this makes them extremely anxious at work.
dr Harlow is not alone.
A new British Medical Association (BMA) report, shared exclusively with BBC News, has found that 76% of respondents have experienced racism at work. About 60% say it has affected their mental health.
More than 2,000 people took part in an online survey that formed part of the report and was open to all UK doctors in medical workplaces. About 66% of the respondents belonged to ethnic minorities.
Around 40% of the NHS’s 123,000 doctors are from minority backgrounds, compared to around 13.8% of the general population.
BMA chairman Chaand Nagpaul warns of a mental health crisis among doctors – and that racism threatens patient safety by making medics anxious and depressed.
“If doctors are psychologically distressed because of their experiences of racism, if they feel isolated and unsupported, it will affect their ability to provide the best possible care,” he says.
In response, the head of NHS England’s Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES), Prof Anton Emmanuel, said it has “taken decisive action to address the inequalities that exist and is making progress, but we know there is more to be done.” is”.
dr Harlow has created a series of TikToks on the subject that have received hundreds of thousands of views.
A video that was “tongue-in-cheek” shows her using stock images to recreate racist incidents at work – including being ignored by other surgeons, being called racial slurs by patients and having a counselor say, “My wife is black!”
In her day-to-day work in the real world, she says even something as simple as not having a surgical cap that fits over her hair can be an isolating and humbling experience – despite “repeated asking” about it. She says her colleagues laugh at her when she puts together a makeshift surgical cap that fits.
“It’s not just embarrassing,” she says. “It doesn’t make you feel welcome. And of course, when working in the theater, cross-infection control must be absolutely spotless.
“When someone taunts you for something you had to do to comply with regulations … when you can’t find a surgical cap that fits, when you’re under undue scrutiny for the smallest thing, it makes you feel like you can’t.” are wanted.”
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The problem is for Dr. Harlow ingrained. She comes from a family of black medical professionals – including her grandfather, mother and aunt – who have all experienced racism in their careers.
“We have had really shocking experiences of racism in the workplace together. I totally understand that my grandpa will have been training for a very long time. And so does my aunt,” she says.
“But even today we still experience racism in the workplace. And with my aunt, she suffered terribly at her job. She was bullied and harassed, and she received no support from her peers. And sadly in the end, she took her own life.”
The BMA report highlights that the problem is particularly acute for those graduating outside the UK.
Rajat Banerjee, who qualified as a doctor in Kolkata, India, tells the BBC his dream is to come to the UK and work for the NHS: “They said England was heaven for medicine – and I have it believed.”
But now, some 30 years after moving here, he says his experiences of systemic discrimination while working in the NHS left him depressed and traumatised.
for dr Banerjee’s problems began in the late 2000s when a colleague filed a complaint against him. Before long, he says, he faced a referral to the General Medical Council.
According to the BMA’s Delivering Racial Equality In Medicine report, ethnic minority doctors are more than twice as likely to be referred by their employers for proficiency testing procedures than white doctors. It also warns that doctors from minority ethnic communities are almost twice as likely not to raise patient safety concerns for fear of being blamed.
It was three years before Dr. Banerjee’s defense was heard before a tribunal, and the whole process took an enormous mental toll on him.
The complaint against him was eventually upheld and he was warned – but he believes the case would not have been escalated to the GMC had he been white. This feeling ultimately led to intense psychological problems for him.
“I once had to dial 111 because I was feeling so down. Thank god I didn’t do anything stupid. I got help from 111, they called me and they advised me and gave me some medication.”
dr Banerjee is not alone.
Constantly experiencing racism in the workplace, whether overt or covert, can severely impact a person’s mental health, says psychiatrist Dr. Raj Mohan.
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“People can get anxious and paranoid,” he says, when exposed to racism in the workplace. “When you are treated differently than others … you start to underperform. I believe that all of these factors … will lead to mental health issues if they persist over time.”
BMA’s Chaand Nagpaul told the BBC that one in five doctors say they have either left the health service or are considering leaving because they cannot cope with experiences of racism.
“That means you’re potentially going to lose tens of thousands of doctors from the workforce in the coming years when we have the largest backlog of supplies ever,” he added.
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