Are racial disparities in healthcare rooted in the medical community itself?

The well-documented racial disparities in healthcare may not be just related to insurance and socioeconomic status, some doctors say, but a longstanding divide within the medical community itself, which has led to a shortage of black physicians.

Just as many women prefer to see female gynecologists, the South Florida Times article says, black patients tend to seek out black doctors, with whom they have greater comfort and trust. But with African-American physicians accounting for only 6.2 percent of the total number of physicians employed in the country and 2 percent of medical students, many black patients, already strained from "segregated wings and second-rate care" and reluctant to see white physicians, may give up on obtaining medical care altogether.

According to the National Medical Association, a 30,000-member organization that addresses the interests of doctors and patients of African descent, the problem traces back to the not-so-distant days when black physicians were excluded from membership in the American Medical Association, required at the time to work in hospitals. Although the AMA in 1968 became more accepting and even threatened to expel organizations that had racially exclusionary policies, a great deal of damage may have already been done. In 2008, the AMA issued a formal apology for its shameful discriminatory policies, which the NMA accepted.

Both organizations currently run programs to raise awareness about the need for minority doctors and mentor interested students.

But even upon joining the health workforce, challenges to black physicians persist. For example, according to Cheryl Holder, director of the James Wilson Bridges Medical Association, because black patients are often addressing disease in more advanced stages, their care is more costly, thus compromising their HMO ratings and compensation. These difficulties are on top of more entrenched forms of racism, she says.

To learn more:
- read the article in the South Florida Times

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