The hint of an education on race and racism I received in medical school involved a historical overview of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and retired eugenics practices. As I rotated on the wards, race came up again as a vague tool to help narrow a diagnosis. New Black patient with severe headache, blurry vision? Think hypertensive crisis. I wasn’t taught why hypertension might be more prevalent in the Black American population. (Hint: Genetics is not the answer.) I was never taught that Black newborns delivered by a white doctor are more likely to die than those delivered by a Black doctor, either
You know who really needs to be schooled on critical race theory? Your doctor
July 30, 2021