Who’s Your Doctor? Maybe Wu’s Your Doctor

            Recently I had some medical appointments with specialists new to me.  One was a cardiologist, whose last name was Kannam.  Although we didn’t discuss ethnicity, he seemed to me to be South Asian.  (On Google, I found that Kannam is of Indian, specifically Tamil, origin.) The next visit was to a sleep specialist, Dr. Makhija.  This time we had a broader chat, and I did ask her origins, which turned out to be Indian.  We talked about immigration and she noted the folly of immigration bans, because “We’re your doctors.” Next, I got a referral from my eye doctor to a glaucoma specialist named Rao. Going on line, I found that my Rao, Dr. Veena, was one of over two dozen Massachusetts Dr. Raos.  In fact you could almost confine yourself to Raos and have total medical care, from prenatal to hospice, including cardiac, gastro, ob-gyn, surgery, kidney, psychology, and acupuncture.

            But that’s nothing compared to my wife’ s surname team.  Her dermatologist, Dr. Wu, has a name shared by over 40 doctors and dentists in the area.  They cover 25 specialties and subspecialties, from pediatric dentistry to population medicine.  If Dr. Daniel, an ophthalmologist, needs you to see a specialist in glaucoma, the cornea, or the retina, he can send you to another Wu. Trouble with your kidneys, heart, mind, bones, neural network, skin? – there’s a Wu for you.

            There are also a large number of Muslim doctors, though I haven’t found a practical way to locate them by name.  But various sources estimate there are 15,000 – 20,000 Muslim doctors in the United States, or around 2% of the medical profession, about the same percentage of Muslims as in the general population.  In all about 20% of American doctors are foreign-born, and research shows no difference between their care and that of American born and trained doctors.  But there is a group of doctors who have a worse record – U.S. born doctors who trained elsewhere and then came back to practice here.

            So a medical “America First” campaign just might be bad for your health.  Be sure to read the label.