*The history of the Black experience in Medicine is complex, multifaceted and ever increasing. This compilation serves as a stepping stone and a means to encourage further reading into this history. *
Organized Medicine
Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/african-american-physicians1.pdf
Summary:
Involvement in a Medical Society means a greater opportunity for professional advancement: This meant a forum to present research, a community of medical professionals that could provide medical advice, greater likelihood of referrals, licensure and greater source of income and education opportunities. The lack of a medical society membership meant professional isolation, limited sources of income and educational opportunity.
Alexander August, Charles Purvis among other black physicians were denied admission to the Medical Society of the District of Columbia (MSDC) and the Massachusetts Medical Society. The Senate Committee found the MSDC guilty of racial discrimination in 1869, however in 1892 the MSDC still refused to admit black physicians.
In 1870 Augusta, Purvis and other black physicians founded a racially integrated medical society called the National Medical Society (NMS). The MSDC requested that the American Medical Association not seat the NMS. The AMA refused to adopt a nondiscrimination policy and excluded several societies with black members from attending meetings despite admitting two all-white delegations.
Medical Education
Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/african-american-physicians2.pdf
Summary:
Although these schools lacked the resources to comply with the increasing educational standards, American Medical Association rated all African American schools in the bottom third of US educational institutions. Additionally, 20% of individuals who graduated from Black medical schools failed licensing.
The AMA conducted survey of medical schools in the US that created the Flexner Report of 1910. The report found that too “many poor quality” schools existed and recommended that these weaker schools be closed for greater allocation of resources to ‘stronger’ schools. The report also recommended that black physicians only practice on black patients or become sanitarians.
In 1923, by the recommendations of the Flexner report, 40% of US medical schools operating in 1910 were closed and among the 7 African American schools, 5 were closed. Howard University Medical School and Meharry Medical College were the only two black medical schools that remained opened. Both medical schools continued to struggle financially. The Flexner report did not directly suggest adequate funding for these two colleges while white medical schools were funded first.
Civil Rights and the American Medical Association
Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/african-american-physicians3-v2.pdf
Summary:
Specialty training, which was carried out in hospitals, is required for board certification. However, hospitals often required that its staff be members of medical societies. As mentioned earlier many medical societies did not extend membership admission to black physicians. Therefore, many black physicians were barred from specialty training and professional advancement. In 1931, only 2 of 25, 000 specialties in the US were black.
In 1961, the court ruled in Eaten v. James Walker Memorial hospital that Eaton among other African Americans were wrongfully denied staff privileges. In the Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital case of 1963 , the court of appeals found it on unconstitutional to discriminate against black physicians in hospitals built using federal funding.
Civil right was evidently not a priority for the American Medical Association. In 1939 the group, appointed a committee to consider issue that posed harm to the welfare of coloured physicians and publicly denounced racial discrimination in state/ local membership however between 1940-1964 many attempts made by the National Medical Association’s policy proposals aimed at changing discriminatory membership, were rebuffed by the AMA. In 1968 the AMA first expressed need to increase the number of African American physicians and in 1992 the AMA’s Minority Affairs Consortium was created.
Scientific Racism
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2687899/
Key points: While science has the reputation of objectively testing theories using the scientific method, scientific racism is the exact opposite. It seeks to create definitions of race and culture based on opinion and extremely questionable evidence: “Supposed scientific evidence was marshalled, to establish both the existence of different racial types, and their depiction within a hierarchy of superior and inferior, where the Black was regarded as inferior” (2). The important distinction between science and scientific racism is that the creation of separate racial categories was not solely for the sake of a biological system of classification, but rather for political means.
These preconceptions were based on the idea that nature, and not social forces, created divisions in society, and consequently “the physiological, cultural, and economic woes of the poor and the nonaffluent ‘middling classes’ were scientifically ordained by Nature, and therefore neither preventable nor reversible”
Examples
Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta was a black woman who suffered from a cervical cancer and whose tumor was used, without her consent, in tissue culture research. Cells from her tumor were found to be the first cells to grow outside of the human body in culture, cells that doubled every 20-24 hours and never died. Today her cells, later dubbed HeLa cells, are used several experiments as the “go-to human cell line for scientists”.
https://www.health.com/mind-body/henrietta-lacks
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/02/henrietta-lacks-and-race/35286/
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Doctors from the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), which was running the study, informed the participants—399 men with latent syphilis and a control group of 201 others who were free of the disease—they were being treated for bad blood, a term commonly used in the area at the time to refer to a variety of ailments. The men were monitored by health workers but only given placebos such as aspirin and mineral supplements, despite the fact penicillin became the recommended treatment for syphilis in 1947.In order to track the disease’s full progression, researchers provided no effective care as the men died, went blind or insane or experienced other severe health problems due to their untreated syphilis.
https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study
Covid-19
Covid-19 has unmasked many disparities in healthcare that disadvantage black individuals. Vaccine trials that target African and other black communities have served to show that the United States and the world on a whole have not yet unlearned their racist theories and misconceptions.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6502/351
https://www.scidev.net/global/health/news/covid-19-trials-at-risk-after-africa-racism-backlash.html
Accomplishments
Notable African Americans
https://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/blackhistorymonth/chronology
Chronology of Achievements
https://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/blackhistorymonth/people
Sources for further reading:
Black experience in Healthcare
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1SzM9zKIx-1W2sa3LL63sUvvorQWlHIiF5ehT7K3BIAk/mobilebasic
Black experience in STEM Resource List
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DJ8VQzFHgxRm_l1hcZvLTL8TXomrqbOtjbmr_ymOEAE/edit
Organized Medicine
Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/african-american-physicians1.pdf
Summary:
Involvement in a Medical Society means a greater opportunity for professional advancement: This meant a forum to present research, a community of medical professionals that could provide medical advice, greater likelihood of referrals, licensure and greater source of income and education opportunities. The lack of a medical society membership meant professional isolation, limited sources of income and educational opportunity.
Alexander August, Charles Purvis among other black physicians were denied admission to the Medical Society of the District of Columbia (MSDC) and the Massachusetts Medical Society. The Senate Committee found the MSDC guilty of racial discrimination in 1869, however in 1892 the MSDC still refused to admit black physicians.
In 1870 Augusta, Purvis and other black physicians founded a racially integrated medical society called the National Medical Society (NMS). The MSDC requested that the American Medical Association not seat the NMS. The AMA refused to adopt a nondiscrimination policy and excluded several societies with black members from attending meetings despite admitting two all-white delegations.
Medical Education
Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/african-american-physicians2.pdf
Summary:
Although these schools lacked the resources to comply with the increasing educational standards, American Medical Association rated all African American schools in the bottom third of US educational institutions. Additionally, 20% of individuals who graduated from Black medical schools failed licensing.
The AMA conducted survey of medical schools in the US that created the Flexner Report of 1910. The report found that too “many poor quality” schools existed and recommended that these weaker schools be closed for greater allocation of resources to ‘stronger’ schools. The report also recommended that black physicians only practice on black patients or become sanitarians.
In 1923, by the recommendations of the Flexner report, 40% of US medical schools operating in 1910 were closed and among the 7 African American schools, 5 were closed. Howard University Medical School and Meharry Medical College were the only two black medical schools that remained opened. Both medical schools continued to struggle financially. The Flexner report did not directly suggest adequate funding for these two colleges while white medical schools were funded first.
Civil Rights and the American Medical Association
Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ama-history/african-american-physicians3-v2.pdf
Summary:
Specialty training, which was carried out in hospitals, is required for board certification. However, hospitals often required that its staff be members of medical societies. As mentioned earlier many medical societies did not extend membership admission to black physicians. Therefore, many black physicians were barred from specialty training and professional advancement. In 1931, only 2 of 25, 000 specialties in the US were black.
In 1961, the court ruled in Eaten v. James Walker Memorial hospital that Eaton among other African Americans were wrongfully denied staff privileges. In the Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital case of 1963 , the court of appeals found it on unconstitutional to discriminate against black physicians in hospitals built using federal funding.
Civil right was evidently not a priority for the American Medical Association. In 1939 the group, appointed a committee to consider issue that posed harm to the welfare of coloured physicians and publicly denounced racial discrimination in state/ local membership however between 1940-1964 many attempts made by the National Medical Association’s policy proposals aimed at changing discriminatory membership, were rebuffed by the AMA. In 1968 the AMA first expressed need to increase the number of African American physicians and in 1992 the AMA’s Minority Affairs Consortium was created.
Scientific Racism
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2687899/
Key points: While science has the reputation of objectively testing theories using the scientific method, scientific racism is the exact opposite. It seeks to create definitions of race and culture based on opinion and extremely questionable evidence: “Supposed scientific evidence was marshalled, to establish both the existence of different racial types, and their depiction within a hierarchy of superior and inferior, where the Black was regarded as inferior” (2). The important distinction between science and scientific racism is that the creation of separate racial categories was not solely for the sake of a biological system of classification, but rather for political means.
These preconceptions were based on the idea that nature, and not social forces, created divisions in society, and consequently “the physiological, cultural, and economic woes of the poor and the nonaffluent ‘middling classes’ were scientifically ordained by Nature, and therefore neither preventable nor reversible”
Examples
Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta was a black woman who suffered from a cervical cancer and whose tumor was used, without her consent, in tissue culture research. Cells from her tumor were found to be the first cells to grow outside of the human body in culture, cells that doubled every 20-24 hours and never died. Today her cells, later dubbed HeLa cells, are used several experiments as the “go-to human cell line for scientists”.
https://www.health.com/mind-body/henrietta-lacks
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/02/henrietta-lacks-and-race/35286/
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Doctors from the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), which was running the study, informed the participants—399 men with latent syphilis and a control group of 201 others who were free of the disease—they were being treated for bad blood, a term commonly used in the area at the time to refer to a variety of ailments. The men were monitored by health workers but only given placebos such as aspirin and mineral supplements, despite the fact penicillin became the recommended treatment for syphilis in 1947.In order to track the disease’s full progression, researchers provided no effective care as the men died, went blind or insane or experienced other severe health problems due to their untreated syphilis.
https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study
Covid-19
Covid-19 has unmasked many disparities in healthcare that disadvantage black individuals. Vaccine trials that target African and other black communities have served to show that the United States and the world on a whole have not yet unlearned their racist theories and misconceptions.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6502/351
https://www.scidev.net/global/health/news/covid-19-trials-at-risk-after-africa-racism-backlash.html
Accomplishments
Notable African Americans
https://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/blackhistorymonth/chronology
Chronology of Achievements
https://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/blackhistorymonth/people
Sources for further reading:
Black experience in Healthcare
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1SzM9zKIx-1W2sa3LL63sUvvorQWlHIiF5ehT7K3BIAk/mobilebasic
Black experience in STEM Resource List
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DJ8VQzFHgxRm_l1hcZvLTL8TXomrqbOtjbmr_ymOEAE/edit