Things I don't know how to fix

I was interested, though not shocked to read about this recent study published in JAMA which found that Blacks and Latinos are much less likely to be prescribed heavy pain meds in the ER. This is no slouch sample, either, they looked at 150,000 visits and found that only 23 percent of blacks and 24 percent of Latinos received opioids compared to 31 percent of whites.

Ok, not shocked, I'll repeat, but totally appalled. This is what sucks about modern racism. It's not your local neo-nazi making a scene, it's everyone either subconsciously or quietly treating people differently based on race. No, wait, that's making it nice, it's not treating people differently, it's treating people of color worse. The discrepancies found by this study are huge even for complaints such as kidney stones and long bone fractures.

Now, I understand that most ERs contend with a certain amount of drug seeking behavior in patients and that it's something to be wary of. I can only assume that there's a Doctor race auto-pilot that says Black=drugs. Here's the kicker: Blacks are actually the least likely group to suffer from opiate addiction.

All the while I'm reading about this and making this post, in some other tab an episode of House, MD is playing. And he makes asinine racist jokes all the time. The jokes seem to carry the assumption that he's a stand in for society when he makes them. But hell, half the show's success rests on the dark humor of House being a jerk to people. What's the impact of what he says on the viewing public? When House jokes about race, is he reinforcing stereotypes and helping us bright-eyed doctor hopefuls (who can still watch these shows only because we don't know a dern thing about doctoring yet, I'm told) become people who will only continue the problem? Or is it so deep down already that maybe he can bring it to the surface? Maybe, but I'm guessing that reports out of JAMA might do a better job of that. On the other hand, despite the numerous medical blogs I read, I picked this story up first while glancing through the news and the only blog I saw mention it was Pam's House Blend. Not exactly a medical blog, so who's paying attention?