29 July 2008

Race & Medicine: An (American) Apology

Today's New York Times has an essay about the AMA's apology for "past wrongs" to black doctors in the US. Reading the essay, it seems as if the AMA were pretty late to get on the integration bus, and behaved negligently in the issue of racial discrimination, although they have made up for in the last few decades. Interesting fact from the article: "In 1910, ... African-Americans made up 2.5 percent of the number of physicians in the United States. Today, they make up 2.2 percent". In Bermuda, we have the Ombudsman's report on discrimination which outlines the tensions over race and professional power between doctors at KEMH.

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