Pediatrician Ethnicity & the Impact on Child Healthcare

If you are searching for a new physician or dentist, it is not uncommon to seek out the services of a healthcare provider who may have the same ethnic or racial background as your own. In many patient-physician relationships, there is a greater satisfaction with medical care when the healthcare professional is someone we can identify with by race and ethnicity.

In addition to identification, because issues associated with health and medical treatment may vary from one ethnicity to another, often, we choose physicians of "like-kind" simply because there is a feeling of security and understanding in the beliefs about healthcare. This is especially true when we believe our physician can relate or understand our religious and cultural beliefs about specific medical treatments.

As a parent, it may seem natural to consider these same factors when choosing a physician, pediatrician or dentist for your children. While you may believe your child will have a far better experience when treated by a physician of like race or like ethnicity, most children report feeling no differently when treated by a physician or dentist outside of their cultural norm.

Your child may feel perfectly comfortable in the presence of a physician, or dentist, of any race, gender and ethnicity. This comfort level may lie in the child's lack of pre-conceived notions about their health and treatment, in addition to a general lack of information about what treatments are appropriate in terms of their cultural or ethnic foundation. In other words, children tend to be blind to gender, race and ethnicity, when it comes to medical treatment and report feeling no less anxious when in the process of physician, or dentist, from a different background.