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Op-Ed LAT: You know who really needs to be schooled on critical race theory? Your doctor
Just one more stark reality CRT avoids facing...
JULY 28, 2021 3:05 AM PT
The hint of an education on race and racism I received in medical school involved a historical overview of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and retired eugenics practices. As I rotated on the wards, race came up again as a vague tool to help narrow a diagnosis. New Black patient with severe headache, blurry vision? Think hypertensive crisis.
I wasn’t taught why hypertension might be more prevalent in the Black American population. (Hint: Genetics is not the answer.)
I was never taught that Black newborns delivered by a white doctor are more likely to die than those delivered by a Black doctor. Or that federally sanctioned redlining in the 1930s still increases the odds of Black-majority neighborhoods having shorter life expectancies.
These seemed like more than just weird coincidences.
The hint of an education on race and racism I received in medical school involved a historical overview of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and retired eugenics practices. As I rotated on the wards, race came up again as a vague tool to help narrow a diagnosis. New Black patient with severe headache, blurry vision? Think hypertensive crisis.
I wasn’t taught why hypertension might be more prevalent in the Black American population. (Hint: Genetics is not the answer.)
I was never taught that Black newborns delivered by a white doctor are more likely to die than those delivered by a Black doctor. Or that federally sanctioned redlining in the 1930s still increases the odds of Black-majority neighborhoods having shorter life expectancies.
These seemed like more than just weird coincidences.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-07-28/teach-critical-race-theory-medical-school