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Thursday, May 3, 2012

Does Medicine Discourage Gay Doctors?

By Pauline W. Chen, M.D.
The New York Times - Well
Originally published April 26, 2012

During my surgical training, whenever the conversation turned to relationships, one of my colleagues would always joke about his inability to get a date, then abruptly change the subject. I thought he might be gay but never asked him outright, because it didn’t seem important.

But one morning, while we working at the nurses’ station with several of the other doctors-in-training, I realized it was important, because at the hospital, he really couldn’t be himself.

That morning, one of the senior surgeons stormed over. He had found one of his patients feeling slightly short of breath, no doubt because of an insufficient dose of diuretic overnight.

“Which of you idiots,” he growled at us, “gave my patient a homosexual dose of diuretic?”

The entire story is here.