Ethnicity In Medicine

Ethnic information can be an important source in the practice of medicine. It can be used to determine which disease is most common in different races. However, it should not be used to determine the treatment for certain groups of people. To understand the appropriate use of ethnicity in the practice of medicine it is important to understand the concept of race. There are people that think that humans can be grouped into different races while others cannot. Race is used in different applications. Responses to medical therapies, like drugs, are compared among populations that are divided according to racial divisions (Jorde, 2004).The average proportion of nucleotides difference between people is about 1 out of 1000. Some common facts that …show more content…
If disease associated response alleles are common they are most likely shared between many populations and thus this can be a wrong indicator of a presence of an allele related to the drug response or even diagnosis (Jorde, 2004). To determine a result base on a population’s average of how well they respond to medication can cause huge problems as many people could be denied appropriate drug treatment. Also, patients with similar clinical phenotypes might need different treatments if that phenotype has a different cause (Hardy 2003). This is when ethnicity should not be used to determine then if one should get treatment based on the majority. Ignoring the fact many population variations is shared will lead to misdiagnosis. Since allelic variation is usually shared among many populations, race can be an inaccurate indicator of medical response and treatment. It would be better to take an “individual genetic assessment of relevant genes” from the affected person then to use race for decision making on what kind of treatment to take (Jorde, 2004). Using only race would over simplify matters and rule out the fact that nongenetic factors also play a role in the complex human