African American physicians and organized medicine, 1846-1968: origins of a racial divide.

Full Abstract

Like the nation as a whole, organized medicine in the United States carries a legacy of racial bias and segregation that should be understood and acknowledged. For more than 100 years, many state and local medical societies openly discriminated against black physicians, barring them from membership and from professional support and advancement. The American Medical Association was early and persistent in countenancing this racial segregation. Several key historical episodes demonstrate that many of the decisions and practices that established and maintained medical professional segregation were challenged by black and white physicians, both within and outside organized medicine. The effects of this history have been far reaching for the medical profession and, in particular, the legacy of segregation, bias, and exclusion continues to adversely affect African American physicians and the patients they serve.

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Author information

Author/s: Baker, Robert B (RB); Washington, Harriet A (HA); Olakanmi, Ololade (O); Savitt, Todd L (TL); Jacobs, Elizabeth A (EA); Hoover, Eddie (E); Wynia, Matthew K (MK);

Affiliation: The Union Graduate College-Mount Sinai School of Medicine Bioethics Program, and Department of Philosophy, Union College, Schenectady, New York, USA.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Historical Article; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Jul; vol 300 (issue 3) : pp 306-13

Dates: Created 2008/07/17; Completed 2008/07/23;

PMID: 18617633, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

CommentIn: JAMA. 2008 Jul 16;300(3):323-5. (PMID: 18617634)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

African Americans - history
American Medical Association - history
Civil Rights - history
History, 19th Century
History, 20th Century

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