Do Patients Get Better Care When They Look Like Their Doctors?

By Dena Rifkin, MD
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I saw a young man from Portugal, a new immigrant to the United States who didn’t speak English, a couple weeks ago in the hospital. He really needed a long-term physician. Like many such patients, he didn’t have access to health insurance here, and he hadn’t seen a doctor for more than three years. He had lots of issues that weren’t going to be resolved during the hospital stay.
So I set about looking for a physician for him. And from the 15 or so available choices in the clinic, I picked a doctor who was a young Latino man, the most similar to him. Read More