If I learned anything from teaching, it was no one size fits all. Once an African American student, after a lecture on some genetic diseases, demanded I issue a retraction of a statement I made concerning an intestinal disease being more prevalent in Blacks and Asians than Caucasians because this made him feel inferior. I asked him if he would question his future female patients about their menses or breast lumps, or males about their prostate health (propensities for abnormalities are, of course, related to their genetic makeup). The next lecture I made a point about the necessity for the physician to treat every patient as unique and to be sensitive to some who will be ashamed of their disease, whether due to external conditions, lifestyle, or their DNA. They deserve a scramble to find the key to educate them about ways to deal with their physical and emotional dis-ease.
To me, the teachable point for sensitive students is, their discomfort may be the expected outcome of violence, hate, and unfairness in their lives and, if possible, for them to somehow educate others about the result of these things and explore ways for them and their community to decrease such destructive effects.
‘Tis a gift to heal, ‘tis a gift to be healed
wkg
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