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Year:: 2017
Contributor:: Braun, Lundy (Author)
Subject:: medical education; race in research; racism; politics; critical race theory; research; student activism; education reform; medical industrial complex; perspective

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Abstract:: In this article, Braun explores the role of medicine in perpetuating racial inequality, and how medical education, research and practice can be contextualized within the current political environment in the United States. Braun makes clear the link between resurgence of explicit racism in contemporary American society and the racism that is embedded within medicine and “scientific knowledge-making systems,” by describing how society has influenced science, and how this racialized science has, and continues to shape society. She first identifies the normalization of the idea of innate biological differences between races, and how the false notion, along with “narratives of personal responsibility” have been used to overlook the structures that result in health inequity and tie these explanatory models to the profit-driven work done by pharmaceutical companies and research that promote race-based and precision medicine. She then explores the current deficits in medical education in regards to race and racism, and highlights primarily student-driven efforts for reform - both nationwide, and at Alpert Medical School, including elective courses that she developed specifically for medical students. Finally she notes several structural barriers that exist currently to implementing these reforms, including dismal faculty diversity, the hierarchical nature of medicine and corporatization. She concludes by emphasizing the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach to solving this issue - by learning from Critical Race Theory and the multitude of work done by activists in the Black radical traditions, and a call for current and future medical providers to “read, think and engage with oppressed communities as equals.”
Notes:: Please note that readers would benefit from prior introductory readings on structural racism and the history of medicine.

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Citation

Braun, Lundy, "Theorizing race and racism: Preliminary reflections on the medical curriculum" (2017). Medicine and Race: AMS Annotated Bibliography. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:841711/

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Medicine and Race: AMS Annotated Bibliography

This annotated bibliography was created to serve as a resource for medical students, residents, and faculty interested in learning more about how race is used in medicine and how racism results in disparate health outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities. …

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Theorizing race and racism: Preliminary reflections on the medical curriculum