TW: medical racism

Yesterday I posted about distancing disability claims/benefits/accommodations from medicine. This is part of the reason why. BIPOC have historically never received equivalent care in the system. 1/7 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/21/915084127/all-you-want-is-to-be-believed-sick-with-covid-19-and-facing-racial-bias-in-the-?sc=18&f=1001

I thought that the medical professionals interviewed here would be clear that change needs to happen. But most statements are basically "we don't want to call out our colleagues for being racist, bc that's a hard conversation, and we still don't take bias training seriously." 2/7

As a historian of medicine I can point medical racism out to med students all day every day. I can talk about how the history of gynecology came from the torture of Black women. I can tell them about dangerous drug testing practices, about ignoring informed consent. 3/7

I can tell them that recent investigations prove that doctors still believe BIPOC experience less pain, that both microaggressions and more obvious forms of discrimination happen every single day in medical settings. 4/7

My lectures wont make a difference unless the medical sector takes this seriously. Med students need training in #HistMed. They need ethics classes that call in patient narratives (who get paid for providing those narratives). And hospitals need to commit to bias training. 5/7

The med sector needs to acknowledge its long history of racism, sexism, and ableism. It continues to perpetuate eugenics. BIPOC, especially disabled BIPOC continually have to worry about their right to treatment and the affordability of that care. The system is inequitable. 6/7

Medical racism is alive and well. Until we address it head on without trying to get around the words, without supplementing in "social determinants of health," without worrying how practitioners might respond, we won't make progress. 7/7 #MedTwitter