'Are you really the doctor?': The realities of life as a Black doctor in the NHS

Alhough I take great pride in calling myself a writer and a comedian, medicine pays my bills. Like me, ever more non-white members of society are being granted the opportunity, the privilege, to become doctors – just in time to enjoy the job for a few years, before we are rendered obsolete by Google, AI and the general post-pandemic mistrust of traditional sources of information.

But often, our experience of these last days, the barbarians at the gates, is not the same as that of white counterparts. 

People ask me if there are parallels between comedy and medicine – greeting a patient is a lot like walking on stage. In 30 seconds or less, they will have formed their opinion and getting it right or wrong will dictate how the next 20 minutes is going to go. If you don’t match the stereotype of a doctor, even the most showmanly, obsequious performance is no guarantee of protection from an attitude and remarks others would never encounter.

In my book Are You Really the Doctor? I recount the time when a patient felt the need to close our consultation with, “So Dr Hutchinson, that’s a very British surname.” As if both how I could be British, and also how Black people of Caribbean descent ended up with English and Scottish surnames, were a mystery to her. 

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As much as doctors may like to pretend, wish even, that we are meta-human, we are in fact flesh and blood members of society. The forces holding back ethnic minority doctors are the same as those stifling the patients we see in front of us. At baseline, regardless of race, being alive, just getting through the day can be a marathon slog.

Being a member of any marginalised group simply adds a few bricks to the bottom of your pack. The house you are more likely to live in, the job you are more likely to have, may make you sick – and the care you receive when you seek help is less likely to make you better.

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As well as ensuring you had the most gilded of tableware for your next dinner party, you might hope winning Wimbledon seven times would also guarantee you a pretty high standard of antenatal care. Not so for Serena Williams – who despite being one of the most famous and wealthy people on the planet, couldn’t convince doctors the pain she was experiencing after giving birth was due to a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism. If this is her experience, what hope is there for others?

And true enough, in majority white societies the statistics around outcomes for black women giving birth are shameful. In the UK, in some years, they have been as much as five times more likely than their white counterparts to die in childbirth. 

All of these disparities occur in an NHS with an uncertain future. The disadvantaged who need it most, and for it to improve, face the prospect of the health service disappearing in any recognisable form. The NHS remains one of our most important safety nets – protecting ordinary people from a more precipitous fall away from those more privileged.

But the holes are widening. The man tasked with the repair, Wes Streeting, at times when announcing his remedies, has the air of a Foxton’s estate agent giving his most enthusiastic sell. He presents a health service, which although much loved, is “in need of complete modernisation” – promising to get patients on the doctor’s appointment ladder. 

Even this comparison can’t be made without allusion to class and privilege. Growing up on a council estate, Mr Streeting may have faced as many, if not more obstacles to becoming a doctor than I ever did (although, given he managed to vault into Cambridge, he would likely have managed it, had he chosen that path). Race is one of only many societal factors dictating the make-up of the healthcare workforce and the experiences of those it treats. 

What will fix the treatment of non-white patients and staff? The tone of the national conversation makes me suspicious we may be waiting a while for the new Rome that will mean equity for all. What can be done however, is the involvement of members of these groups in the structure of services – both lending their voice during design and ensuring they are given the opportunity to compete fairly for leadership roles. Fortunately, it’s not my job to implement this.

Are You Really the Doctor? My Life as a Black Doctor in the NHS by Matthew Hutchinson is out now (Blink, £22).

You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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