Medical Students Comment On Race & Medicine Series
Last year, I published an eight-part series focusing on race and medicine on this blog. I’m happy to say that it remains very popular and continues to receive comments. I thought I’d take a moment to highlight some of the responses I’ve received from medical students on the series recently.
Joshua Frederiksen On Sally Guttmacher’s Interview
I really agree with Dr. Guttmacher (which btw means ‘Good maker’ in German, a name that fits well reading her credentials.) Specifically Dr. Guttmacher stresses the point that there is no such thing as race in the biological sense in humans. Our similarities far outweigh any differences. As such we must ask what the cause for differences in health outcomes between groups of patients is. The answer is more cultural and specifically socio-economical. As long as African Americans are at the bottom of the ladder they will have worse health outcomes. It starts with diet. Then you add unsafe working environments, unstable homes, dangerous neighborhoods and much less preventative medicine. This is what ‘predisposes’ to illness.
Nick Anast On Esteban Gonz¡lez Burchard’s Interview
Although, race and ethnic background have been used in the United States as a cause for discrimination and prejudice, the medical community does derive beneficial use of these categories. Racial and ethnic categories have their purpose in epidemiologic/clinical research and in evaluating a patient’s risk for various diseases. As cited by Dr. Burchard in this interview, there is a clear link between race and your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It is true that socioeconomic factors play a major role in determining health outcomes and the prevalence of disease within a population but I think it is hard to ignore the genetic connection different races and ethnic groups share.
Nick, Joshua, thank you for your comments.
