Systemic racism and the "legacy of slavery" could be responsible for up to 80% of Black people’s health issues, a doctor argued on MSNBC Saturday.
Dr. Uché Blackstock, author of the book "Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine," discussed a recent study from Dr. L. Ebony Boulware that analyzed the "strong link between racism and chronic poor health conditions for Black and Brown communities in America." Bouncing off Boulware’s study, Blackstock advised moving away from the suggestion that individual choices are behind medical issues.
"I think so often we think about health as individual choices that patients make. And instead, we really need to understand how practices and policies, you know, the legacy of slavery, the legacy of Jim Crow, current-day systemic racism impacts the health of our communities," Blackstock said on MSNBC's "Velshi."
She later added, "[I]ndividuals are only responsible for about 20% of what makes them healthy. The other 80% are these systemic factors that Dr. Boulware and her colleagues studied in this very, very important research that needs to inform how, you know, communities and resources are given."
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Blackrock explained that issues such as housing insecurity, food deserts, lack of a good education and no gainful employment contribute to worse outcomes.
"So it’s not just about what medications a physician prescribed or a health professional prescribed, it’s about what is the prescription for making a community healthier? What will allow it to have higher quality education, better job opportunity, more green space? All of that is critically, critically important. And I’m so glad that we are now discussing those factors instead of what happens inside of an exam room or clinic room, because we know what happens at the community level has the highest and most significant impact on the health of our communities," Blackrock said.
"And our communities deserve that. Because of discriminatory housing policies and other racist practices, we are seeing what we’re seeing now in terms of these high burdens of chronic disease in our communities. Diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease, essentially it’s killing us."
In a column for National Review, Dr. Richard Bosshardt explained the dangers of forcing critical race theory or diversity, equity and inclusion ideology into medical schools.
"There is a finite amount of time in residency training to mold a competent surgeon from a fumble-fingered intern. To assume that we can continue to turn out excellent surgeons and simultaneously burden surgical education with the degree of time-consuming indoctrination in anti-racism and DEI demanded by the ACS tool kit is, at best, foolish and futile, and, at worst, dangerous to our patients," Bosshardt wrote.
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He added, "I have spoken to many of my surgical peers, and we agree that we are already seeing an erosion of quality in surgery, with many programs turning out surgeons who are not ready to practice independently. I have spoken to surgical residents who report a sense that they are not getting the necessary hands-on clinical and surgical experience to feel confident, while being simultaneously tasked with assimilating and regurgitating anti-racist and DEI ideology."
