July

We commend your article “Management of vulnerable adult patients seeking to leave hospital: Understanding and using relevant legislation” [BCMJ 2021;63:106-111]. For consultation-liaison psychiatrists, capability assessments may be nuanced when patients have fluctuating lucidity or are under the coercive forces of addiction.

“Why did you go into medicine?” I find it curious that I still get asked this question, 15 years into practice. “Were your parents doctors?” Or “Was your father a businessman?” It’s as if being a young, Black, female doctor and entrepreneur simply doesn’t compute in the minds of the average non-Black individual. I went into medicine as a Black woman of Jamaican Canadian heritage, embracing the ideals of non-maleficence and filled with the requisite zeal and optimism expected of a future medical professional.

As I write this, we are more than 3 weeks into worldwide protests following the killing of Mr George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota on 25 May 2020. Demonstrators and activists have made it clear that they expect people (particularly White people) in positions of leadership and of privilege, who have a voice to use it. As physicians and community leaders, it is incumbent on us to listen, learn, reflect, and act. It is within our collective and individual powers to improve the health care inequity that our Black patients face.