The Denial of Medical Rights: Medical Racism
|
Provident Hospital was established to improve the medical rights of black physicians and black patients who were being discriminated against by white society and white institutions. "Like the nation as a whole, organized medicine in the United States carries a legacy of racial bias and segregation that should be understood and acknowledged. For more than 100 years, many state and local medical societies openly discriminated against black physicians, barring them from membership and from professional support and advancement. The American Medical Association was early and persistent in countenancing this racial segregation. Several key historical episodes demonstrate that many of the decisions and practices that established and maintained medical professional segregation were challenged by black and white physicians, both within and outside organized medicine. The effects of this history have been far reaching for the medical profession and, in particular, the legacy of segregation, bias, and exclusion continues to adversely affect African American physicians and the patients they serve". -JAMA. 2008;300(3):306-313 [Emphasis added]
|
Photo from Library of Congress (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
|
Treatment of Black Physcians
The AMA made no effort to allow membership to black physicians claiming it was "a matter of local concern"
Digest of Official Actions: 1846-1958 (v.0001 i.000) (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
|
History of the American Medical Association 1847-1947, Pub. Date: 1947 (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
|
In fact, it wasn't until 1961 when black physicians were allowed membership in the AMA
Digest of Official Actions 1859-1968 (v.0002, i.000, Pub Date 1971) (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
In 2008, a JMA article examined racism towards African Americans between 1846 through the Civil Rights Era.
"In 2008 a group convened by the AMA’s Institute for Ethics publishes "African American Physicians and Organized Medicine, 1846-1968." Appearing in the July 16 edition of JAMA, the piece investigates the Association’s relationship to and positions on race. Following publication of the article, AMA issues an apology for its historical role in discrimination against African-Americans in organized medicine. [“African American Physicians and Organized Medicine, 1846-1968.” Robert B. Baker, PhD, Ololade Olakanmi, Harriet A. Washington, et al. Journal of American Medical Association. 2008, 300 (3): 306-313.]" -AMA (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
Treatment of Black Patients
"During Jim Crow, "frank racism", in the form of segregated facilities and wards, "was not uncommon at teaching hospitals," the medical historian Kenneth Ludermer argues. At some institutions black patients were only ever seen by medical students".
-Alondra Nelson
-Alondra Nelson
Cover of "Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism" (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
|
Excerpt from "Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism" by John Hoberman
"Then, as now, the great majority of doctors were white men whose
ignorance and naïveté regarding their black patients had long been evident
to black physicians. The estrangement from blacks that resulted from this
mind-set has expressed itself in many ways. In 1940, Time reported that 'few white doctors dare to operate on their ‘massively’ infected Negro patients' afflicted with tuberculosis. At this time black doctors noted with chagrined amusement that, 'The average young white physician enters practice with the idea that all Negroes have syphilis or tuberculosis.' A generation later the medical anthropologist George Devereux described his observations of 'White-Negro doctor-patient pairs' and the diagnostic errors that resulted from the doctor’s '‘tactful’ reluctance to examine closely the most distinctive portions of a racially alien patient’s body.' White dermatologists may be alternately alarmed about or unaware of the characteristics of black skin and the emotional consequences of skin problems for patients. White doctors sometimes underestimate the intelligence and self-control of black patients and treat them accordingly. The cumulative effects of such naïveté are often evident to blacks but are less evident to the white medical community that does not monitor and report on such incidents". -John Hoberman
|
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (1932-1972)
|
The medical rights of black patients were denied during the forty year inhumane study. "In 1932, the Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis in hopes of justifying treatment programs for blacks. It was called the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male."' -Center for Disease Control and Prevention
|
"Article by Jean Heller, front page, New York Times, July 26, 1972. Investigative journalism first brought the story to public attention." -CDCP (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
|
Excerpt from The Tuskegee Syphilis Study from Journey Man TV
