MEDICINE AND RACE

“Sisters in Arms” (Three on the Town, by Wanda Coleman, Feb. 6) puts a racial edge on a universal medical problem. Doctors, especially surgeons, are not sensitive enough to women.

I found a lump. My general practitioner, a surgeon and a mammogram all said it was nothing. Six weeks later, I went back to the surgeon ready to fight. “I want you to either biopsy this lump or aspirate it, and do it now,” I said. When he aspirated the lump, I saw a cloud pass across the eyes of the nurse, and the doctor scheduled a biopsy. It was no surprise when he called a few days later to apologize. Two kinds of cancer were at work in my breast. Luckily, surgery removed it before my lymph nodes became involved.

Sorry, this isn’t a black woman’s problem. I am white. To cry out “racial bias” on a point that involves all women does none of us any service.

PHEE SHERLINE

Fallbrook