AMA Apologizes to Black Doctors
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25614966/

AMA to apologize to black doctors for racism
New efforts to bring attention to racial disparities in health

CHICAGO - The American Medical Association on Thursday issued a formal apology for more than a century of discriminatory policies that excluded blacks from participating in a group long considered the voice of U.S. doctors.

The apology stems from initiatives at the nation's largest doctors' group to reduce racial disparities in medicine — from the paltry number of black physicians to the disproportionate burden of disease among blacks and other minorities.

Acknowledging past and present inequalities and working toward equality and change. :) Those who understand that, understand that.

Welp, I remember the NMA and NDA conventions while growing up. I worked one of the conventions while my father attended. It was interesting to hear what these physicians and dentists would say about "back in the old days". It convinced me that I would not want to go into clinical service...

Can you give us an idea of what was said?

Back in the "old days"...

The old physicians and dentists, like Phylicia Rashad's and Debbie Allen's father, said it was hard to give the best of care to patients because due to segregation, black patients could not be seen in "any" hospital.

Their father was a dentist though... So, I gather that in a dental emergency, like teeth getting knocked out, etc. treatment options at that time were poor...

Also, access to the latest laboratory tests and equipment were missing. So if someone needed an X-ray due to a broken leg, etc., they could not be seen at a segregated hospital even though the Black attending physician did rounds that morning on patients...

They did not say "specifics" to me, I overheard them because, well, I was a precocious girl at the time... But what I surmised is seeing patients without support of the greater healthcare community is useless. And this was in early 1980's...

An epidemiologist in my department is getting ready to kick off a study that looks at a very specific racial disparity in health care. They've noticed that there are racial differences in who decides to follow "best practice" recommended treatments for colon cancer. Almost everybody was observed to have surgery but there was a huge difference in who opts to get the recommended chemotherapy after the surgery. They will be doing a qualitative type of study on the reasons for patients opting out of chemo. They want to see if it has to do with how the recommendation is presented, a lack of understanding of the recommendation, socioeconomic obstacles (transportation, health insurance, etc), some combination of those things, or what other factors lead to this. It should be an interesting one, although the data will be difficult to code and analyze.

Yes..this is definitely something that needs to be addressed. It has been shown that blacks are more likely to suffer from several diseases than non-blacks, and the disease is often much further progressed when it is caught. We talked about this in one of my classes last year - it was very interesting.