How Abolition of Race-Based Medicine Is Necessary to American Health Justice

Abstract

Modern medicine has always endorsed White supremacy by maintaining social, political, and economic structures that have exacerbated Black and Brown persons' lived embodiment of racism. Racial essentialism persists in health professions education and practice, especially in kidney disease etiology and intervention. This article considers how glomerular filtration rate estimates are one example of historically, politically, and scientifically situated racialized practice in health care today that illuminates a glaring need to abolish race-based clinical care of any kind. The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction… Toni Morrison 1 Racism in MedicineIn the past 2 years, the medical community has once again witnessed a revival of passionate discourse and engagement centered on race and racism in medicine, a shift primarily incited by the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the racialized slayings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, among many others. 2,3 The scope of these activities has been broad, ranging from position statements on antiracism proffered by national health organizations to renewed commitments by academic programs for enhanced recruitment and retention of individuals identifying as Black, Indigenous, or persons of color. 4,5 Such efforts, together with a renaissance of racial justice-oriented research and publications, have spurred hope for transformative change in medical training, practice, and care delivery that will abrogate race-based disparities in health.Despite the medical community's current energy to foment change, a cursory glance at the history of biomedical science and medicine demonstrates that neither the presence of racism nor ardent calls for its elimination are novel. That is to say, we have been here before. This history speaks to the enduring nature of the problem of racism in medicine and begs the question: Are we truly addressing racism as a root cause of health disparities or merely reengaging with its downstream consequences? The answer to this query depends not only on the metrics used but also on the ideology and biases that Citation

Challenging Race-Based Medicine Through Historical Education About the Social Construction of Race

“…28 Given all of this, race-based medicine has been identified as a contributor to racial health disparities in the U.S. 29 and a growing minority of medical students, physicians, scholars, and researchers are calling for the medical field to revise their essentialist conceptualizations of race and abolish race corrections. 28,[30][31][32][33][34][35] Some major medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association, have responded to this scrutiny by reconsidering how medical education, research, and practice contribute to racial health disparities, and by adopting policies that aim to reduce racial essentialism in medicine. 36 Yet, given how embedded biological notions of race are in medical diagnosis and treatment in the U.S., both structural and psychological changes will be needed to eradicate race-based medicine.…”