My Black patient spent most of February in a locked inpatient psychiatric ward. Well, he wasn’t my patient anymore, but he had been at one time. As a resident working with hospitalized children with severe mental illnesses, he was one of my very first patients. He helped me to become a better doctor. I wish I could have helped him more, too. But the medical system failed him.

He was only 9 years old then, and I’d spent weeks advocating for him, encouraging the medical team to understand him as a little boy who struggled with transitions, possibly with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, rather than a “violent terror.” Even though he was a child, he was often described as if he were a tyrannical adult, capable of making the same decisions and given the same emotional tools to handle life’s challenges as a privileged health professional with no mental illness.

In reality, he was a rosy-cheeked child with sad eyes. He had a substantial family history of severe mental illness, and desperately needed help. I had managed to form a good […]