I'm on my anesthesiology rotation right now and working with an an African American CRNA. Usually the people I'm surrounded with in the provider role are white and Asian while the scrub techs and other staff are black and brown. "Back on the plantation" as a Black medical school classmate of mine would bitterly assert when talking about the clear racial underpinnings of power dynamics in the hospital. I was waiting in the OR and when he first walked in I initially thought he was a scrub tech and nevertheless politely greeted him. As he walked over to the anesthesiology counter I immediately stood up and introduced myself as respectfully as I could to counter the automatic assumptions I knew I was still making in my head. Last week when an Asian scrub tech walked in, I assumed he was the attending! Granted, I knew my attending had an East Asian last name but, again, at fault. The CRNA and I began chatting as we walked to see the patient. As a tall, white man swooped in without as much of a hello to either of us, the CRNA looked at me and grinned, "that's the attending. I've worked with him before and don't think he likes brown folks like us very much". I nodded. He continued "I mean he's never said anything to me and it could just be that he doesn't like me personally". Without thinking, I muttered, "well sometimes you just know at a visceral level. The unspoken still leaves an impact". He looked back and smiled and we looked at each other in silence as the attending walked out and away without a word.
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