Most doctors want to help people. That’s why they become doctors instead of, say, dictators—to make a positive difference in people’s lives. Unless, that is, their patient happens to be fat.Earlier this year, two separate studies revealed that medical students show a strong subconscious bias against fat people. According to the researchers, fat patients are less likely to be treated with respect, more likely to be the butt of jokes and, perhaps understandably, more likely to switch their primary care provider than skinny people. As if that wasn’t enough, some hospitals in Britain have even started to ban patients with a BMI over 30 from having any routine sugery. Those banned surgeries, by the way, include knee and hip operations—things you’d think have nothing to do with your waistline. When questioned about this flagrant violation of the Hippocratic oath, 54 percent of doctors said they were totally cool with denying fat people treatment—meaning they haven’t even got the excuse of their hatred being “subconscious.”