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Notes -
Please excuse me for asking this uncomfortable question. Given the nature of affirmative action and other similar dynamics on both medical school acceptance rates and then hiring decisions on the labor market, how much racism is rational for a patient to exercise in selecting a surgeon? While it seems like the racial hierarchy of talent is pretty clear, are the gaps small enough that a patient should simply prefer a risky surgery be performed by someone from one of the higher achieving groups? Or are the gaps so large, a patient should do everything in their power to make sure they have a higher achieving group member performs the risky surgery? Obviously a direct individual comparison between available surgeons would be ideal, but often not possible for patient to accurately assess.
IIRC more complex and difficult surgeries get put on capable white men anyways, while less capable doctors(who tend to be more black) are given more routine tasks, to the point that black doctors as a whole have far below average patient death rates. So you should probably assume that A) medschool is an effective filter for basic competence and B) the existing medical system does a good job of assigning physicians to tasks matching their skill level.
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