Video: Three questions about being a minority doctor in a rural area

We spoke to Dr. Rithesh Ram about his experience as a visible minority doctor practicing in a rural area. While each experience is different, hearing from Dr. Ram can help bring more insight into overlapping types of experiences such as representation in the medical field and the geographical position of different types of practices. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Ram speaking: I was born and raised in a rural area in Alberta, Camrose, but then obviously went to university in both of the major cities here. So in Edmonton, I did my engineering while I was there. And then in Calgary is where I did the MD PhD. That uniqueness is something that you can almost feel, that you can touch when you're in a rural area that just tells you how special and how integrated everybody can be. What experiences have you had as a physician that were different because of your identity? Now, of course, the question about being a minority or being a minority, there's so many things to touch on there. But probably the most, one of the most practical things is the question of “where are you from?” That happens, whether I’m sitting in with a patient, whether it's, you know, meeting people in other places, and I'm talking about even in Edmonton and Calgary. That question came up more often when I was in the city. And my response has been the same. You know, if I'm in Calgary, I said, well, I'm living in Calgary, but I was, you know, I guess born and raised in Camrose. But the next question ends up being “where are you really from?” That line of questioning, it's not meant to be hurtful in any way, I never felt it that way. But the questioning about where you actually come from, doesn't really come out as much in rural areas. What was the main difference for you between being a minority doctor in the city compared to a rural area? In the city, you can, you can very much limit yourself to the groups, individuals, even the places that you live, that fit into a certain mold or are tokenized. And in that way, you cannot do that in rural remote areas. Because the area that you're going to do that in the city is even bigger than the remote area that you would be in. So by default that ability for anyone to do that to themselves isn't there. Similarly, it'd be more difficult for the communities themselves to do that for you. Because they want you to be part of the community; they want you to be integrated with them and not separately identified. Now, you would still be identified for uniqueness so I'm not saying that uniqueness isn't going to disappear, but the wall surrounding it that you're left with, I would say isn't there. How might discrimination towards a minority doctor be addressed in your rural area? So, when it comes to practicing as a physician in a rural remote area, and if you're either self identified or visible minority or even, or even female or you're from a different religious background, if something happens, where it is either racist or discriminatory or something negative that happens to you, as a result of identifying with any of those groups, it's felt more acutely by the community itself as a whole, because it's impacting one of their respected healthcare professionals in the community. So I'd say, if anything happens, you actually get more support from maybe more people than you would expect, when it happens in the city. And I, again, would say it happens far more in any of the cities. I believe you wouldn't get that same outreach, I don't believe you get that same support as broadly as you do when it happens in a rural, or remote area. As you know, people say that we take care of our own. When you move out to these rural and remote areas, you're very much taken in as one of their own and if something bad happens to part of your family, then more people are there for you and more people are there to support you and move forward.

Video: Three questions about being a minority doctor in a rural area

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