Doctors’ training ‘is racist as it warns of patients turning blue’, medical school claims 

The way in which doctors are trained is inherently racist, a leading medical school claims.

Teaching focuses on how illnesses affect white people – such as advising trainee medics to watch for a patient to turn blue – the University of Bristol Medical School says.

Backed by the General Medical Council, it is attempting to ‘decolonise’ its curriculum, with training on spotting unconscious bias.

Students had expressed concerns that they were left ill-prepared to treat ethnic minority patients. 

Students at other medical schools have also called for training to be more inclusive. 

Dr Joseph Hartland of Bristol Medical School said many students go through their training without seeing common skin conditions such as eczema in people with darker skin tones. 

He told the BBC: ‘Historically, medical education was designed and written by white middle-class men, and so there is an inherent racism in medicine that means it exists to serve white patients above all others.’

He added: ‘We are teaching students how to recognise a life-or-death clinical sign largely in white people, and not acknowledging these differences may be dangerous.’