Sometimes, it embarrasses me to be a medical professional. I honor and respect my colleagues, and typically, I’m proud to call myself a physician. But a recent Washington Post story about the enormous biases medical students have regarding pain treatment has troubled me deeply.

The Washington Post story reports that a majority of medical students at the University of Virginia believe that African Americans have less sensitive pain fibers than Caucasians.  Of course, that implies that African Americans are not going to feel as much pain as their Caucasian counterparts, which likely leads to differential treatment. Unfortunately, as inexplicable as that finding is, the false belief is not limited to medical students at the University of Virginia.