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Racism in Healthcare and Health Sciences Education

Racism in Healthcare and Health Sciences Education

Experiences of Nursing and Medical Students

Anonymous (2016, April 9). The racism in medical education can’t be ignored. KevinMD.

Hassouneh-Phillips D, & Beckett A. (2003). An education in racism. Journal of Nursing Education, 42(6), 258–265.

Metzger, M., Dowling, T., Gunn, J., & Wilson, D.T. (2018). Inclusivity in baccalaureate nursing education: A scoping study. Journal of Professional Nursing 36(1), 5-14.

Okwerekwu, J. A. (2016, April 11). The patient called me 'colored girl.' The senior doctor training me said nothing. STAT.

Tiako, M.J.N. (2018, September 5). Racial awareness, if you will. In Training.

White, B., Mentag, N. & Kaunda, B. (2020). African American nurses describe experiences of mistrust and trust while in nursing school. Nursing Education Perspectives 41, 157-162.

Yang, J. (2019, September 9). For women of color in medicine, the challenges extend beyond education. Zora.

Experiences of Clinicians and Faculty

Blackstock, U. (2020, January 16). “Why black doctors like me are leaving faculty positions in academic medical centers."

Cottingham, M. D., Johnson, A. H., & Erickson, R. J. (2018). “I can never be too comfortable”: Race, gender, and emotion at the hospital bedside. Qualitative Health Research, 28(1), 145–158.

Lutz, K. F., Hassouneh, D., Akeroyd, J., & Beckett, A. K. (2013). Balancing survival and resistance: Experiences of faculty of color in predominantly Euro American schools of nursing. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 6(2), 127-146.

Saadi, A. (2016, February 7). A Muslim-American doctor on the racism in our hospitals. KevinMD.

Tedeschi, B (2017, October 8). 6 in 10 doctors report abusive remarks from patients, and many get little help coping with the wounds. STAT.

Webb, B. C. (2017, December 7). A patient called me the N-word. KevinMD.

Experiences of Patients

Begley, S. (2017, September 18). ‘Every time it’s a battle’: In excruciating pain, sickle cell patients are shunted aside. STAT.

Benkert, R., Peters, R. M., Clark, R., & Keves-Foster, K. (2006). Effects of perceived racism, cultural mistrust and trust in providers on satisfaction with care. Journal of the National Medical Association, 98(9), 1532–1540.

Cuevas, A. G., O'Brien, K., & Saha, S. (2016). African American experiences in healthcare: “I always feel like I’m getting skipped over”. Health Psychology, 35(9), 987-995.

Snyder, C. R., Wang, P. Z., & Truitt, A. R. (2018). Multiracial patient experiences with racial microaggressions in health care settings. Journal of Patient-centered Research and Reviews, 5(3), 229–238.

Stallings, E. (2018, August 1). This is how the American healthcare system is failing Black women. O: The Oprah Magazine.

The Influence of Race-based Medicine

Troublesome Science: The Misuse of Genetics and Genomics in Understanding Race by Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall
ISBN: 9780231185721
Publication Date: 2018

Equal treatment: Health equity through education. Race-based Medicine [Learning module].

Hoffman, K. M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J. R., & Oliver, M. N. (2016). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(16), 4296–4301.

Roberts, D.(2015). The problem with race-based medicine [Address]. TED.

Silverstein, J (2015, April 13). Genes don't cause racial-health disparities, society does. The Atlantic.

Villarosa, L. (2019, August 14). Myths about physical differences were used to justify slavery-- and are still believed by doctors today. The New York Times Magazine/The 1619 Project.

Yudell, M., Roberts, D., DeSalle, R., & Tishkoff, S. (2016). Taking race out of human genetics. Science 351(6273), 565-565.

Further Resources

Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism by John Hoberman
ISBN: 9780520248908
Publication Date: 2012
Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson
ISBN: 9780816676484
Publication Date: 2011
Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care by Dayna Bowen Matthew
ISBN: 9781479896738
Publication Date: 2015
Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care by Augustus A. White; David Chanoff
ISBN: 9780674049055
Publication Date: 2011

AAMC’s Anti-racism in Medicine Collection

AAMC’s Diversity in Medicine: Facts and Figures 2019

AAMC's The History of African-Americans and Organized Medicine

AAMC's Racism and Health

AACN's Research and Data Center

BMJ’s Racism in Medicine special issue (February 2020)

NYU Health Sciences Library's Guide to Race and Racism in Medicine

Chadha, N., Kane, M., Lim, B., & Rowland, B. (n.d). Towards the abolition of biological race in medicine: Transforming clinical education, research and practice. Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine.

Dovidio, J. F., & Fiske, S. T. (2012). Under the radar: How unexamined biases in decision-making processes in clinical interactions can contribute to health care disparities. American Journal of Public Health, 102(5), 945–952.

Hardeman, R. R., Medina, E. M., & Kozhimannil, K. B. (2016). Structural racism and supporting black lives—The role of health professionals. New England Journal of Medicine, 375(22), 2113–2115.

Hassouneh D. (2008). Reframing the diversity question: challenging Eurocentric power hierarchies in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 47(7), 291–292.

Nieblas-Bedolla, E., Christophers, B., Nkinsi, N.T., Schumann, P.D., & Stein, E. (2020). Changing how race is portrayed in medical education. Academic Medicine. Advance online publication.