So many of the stories we bring to you focus on disturbing news: anti-Semitic comments, racist sentiment, anti-Israel activity. Just last month, we talked at length about an Ohio doctor of Palestinian descent who joked about prescribing incorrect medications to her Jewish patients. What if a leading medical institution could offer a counterpoint, one of civility?

That's the question we answer this month - along with two other timely stories from the medical field that caught our attention.

Israeli lessons for Jewish-Arab hospital harmony 

By now, many of you know about the large proportion of Arabs employed by Israel's healthcare system. Israeli-Arabs comprise 42% of all nursing students and 16% of all medical students (based on in 2015 figures), near their 20% portion of the general population.

Now Israeli publication Haaretz is asking how Jews and Arabs in the profession coexist. The answer? Famously.

“During Operation Cast Lead, one of the doctors wrote something [anti-Israel on Facebook]," said Dr. Masad Barhoum, director general of Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya. "I told her, 'I don’t care about your political opinions. Nobody does. You are a civil servant. I expect you to be a doctor and a human being with compassion. Do not have the pretension of being a judge. If you don’t delete that, you’re going into war with me.' She deleted it and works here to this day.”

Several factors may explain the co-existence. First, doctors and other healthcare professionals deal with life-and-death issues. The stakes are too high to tolerate political fireworks in the workplace. Saving patients' lives also may bond health professionals with a shared mission not often seen in other professions.

"The instructions are simple," said Prof. Rafi Beyar, director general of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. "We are here, treating patients and saving lives, whoever comes – a soldier, civilian, or terrorist. Everybody is busy saving lives, period."

Along similar lines, the gravity of the work cultivates egalitarian values that reward merit for medical professionals of any culture. This creates an atmosphere where Arab and Jew are equal, reducing the temperature on hot-button political issues.

Taking politics out of the workplace has worked in the Israeli medical system. Is it the answer for other countries? for other industries? If successful, the increase in civility could play one small part in decreasing tensions just as they seem to be spiking throughout the Western world.

While no-politics zones could prove an effective prescription for medical institutions throughout the world, they may be difficult to implement in other professions. The practice also conflicts with the desire of many younger workers to bring their "authentic selves" to the office - especially as the boundary between the personal and professional erodes. This podcast from the Harvard Business Review fleshes out that trend.

New research on racial disparities in pain treatment

A study out of Oregon indicates emergency medical responders treat minority patients differently from the way they treat white patients.

According to the researchers, black patients in the study were 40% less likely to receive pain medication.

Presented in December at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Scientific Symposium, the study was first published last May.

Some have attributed the disparities to the unconscious bias of medical responders, who may believe black patients more likely to fake illness to receive medications.

Others have suggested that black patients are simply less likely to request pain medications, due to deep distrust in the community of the medical profession.

The study results provide a new data set that aligns with previous research on healthcare disparities between races in the U.S. However, the study's lead researcher thinks further research is needed.

"Next steps should include further investigation of disparities on other EMS call types, evaluation of the efficacy of mitigation practices (including provider awareness and training efforts), and to inform county and state policy mechanisms to motivate EMS agencies to provide equitable high-quality care for all patients," wrote Jamie Kennel, head of emergency medical services programs at Oregon Health and Science University and the Oregon Institute of Technology.
 
Sign of the Times: Slanted investigation of medic death

The so-called paper of record in the U.S. closed off 2018 on a down note.

On the front page of its vaunted Sunday edition, The New York Times launched an editorial attack on Israel's armed forces that continued for 4700 words on three inside pages. The piece investigates the death of Palestinian medic Rouzan al-Najjar during Palestinian riots at the Israeli fence with Gaza.

The central allegation of the Times both offends and obfuscates: "Though Israel later admitted her killing was unintentional, the shooting appears to have been reckless at best, and possibly a war crime, for which no one has yet been punished.”

Though couched in conditionals, the allegation rests on half-truths and is reckless itself, as one DARA board member commented this week.

Israel did indeed use live fire to prevent rioters from breaching the fence. But Israeli representatives said the military did not target civilians. In this case, they said, soldiers set their sights on a man in a yellow shirt who was throwing stones. The Times countered that the only man fitting that description stood 120 yards from the fence.

Most striking about the piece is the lack of nuance and the unbalanced narrative. Where the medic is presented as a martyr doing the life-saving work of angels, the Israeli military is denied the benefit of context. Others bits of context - the actions of Hamas and Israeli communities impacted by their rockets -  also get short shrift in the reporters' rush to judgement. 

Medical professionals need to be protected in war zones. One-sided journalistic escapades are hardly the way to enhance this protection.