Racism in Medicine: Both Past and Present

Last week, in my podcast, I spoke about the medical field’s ties to sexism and racism. In this week’s newsletter, I will be going into a history behind the some of the racist incidences I cited in my podcast, as well as providing up-to-date evidence.

Healthcare and medicine are not immune to the effects of structural racism, with numerous studies showcasing the people of color experience disproportionately negative health outcomes. This is due to a multitude of structural factors, as well as implicit biases reflected in the treatment process.

Doctors are known, whether it be consciously or unconsciously, to associate certain racial groups with preconceived notions of pain tolerance and medical symptoms. For example, physicians are more likely to provide white patients with requested pain management than they are Black patients, even if the two were to report identical symptoms.

Studies show us time and time again that there are biases within the medical field. For example, a recent Cigna study found higher rates of cancer, diabetes, childhood obesity, and heart disease among Black Americans linked to minimal access to healthcare and a delay in treatment. Black Americans also die prematurely compared to white Americans from a variety of diseases. There are a variety of other gaps in medical treatment and result when comparing Black and white Americans that are too extreme to be linked to coincidence.

This has also been true throughout history. James Marion Sims, the “founder” of gynecology, was a slaveholder. He performed surgeries on enslaved Black women without their consent or even anesthesia, and only took the consent of other slaveholders. Sims’ reasoning was that Black people did not feel pain, and only began operating on white women four years after beginning operations on Black women and their children. Unfortunately, this narrative has extended into how physicians will often treat Black patients today.

Margaret Sanger was the founder of the first birth control clinic, founded in 1916, which eventually evolved into Planned Parenthood. She supported eugenics as a means for humanity to “assist the race towards the elimination of the unfit”, and advocated for the exclusionary immigration policy as well as the KKK.

So, as I mentioned earlier, the healthcare and medical industries are not immune to the effects of structural racism; in fact, quite the opposite. In a society that claims it strives to be beyond explicit racism, we really need to do better in providing equitable healthcare for all, at the same capacity.