The Problematic Racial History of #MedEd

Since the early 1600s, myths about Black bodies were deemed abnormal and used to justify slavery and white supremacy. Slaves were thought to be physiologically insensitive to pain and suffering, making it acceptable to experiment on them without anesthesia or consent. When Dr. Zha graduated in 2016 from Geisel Medical School, half of the white medical trainees still endorsed at least one racist myth about Black bodies. It's no wonder that racial inequity is still our reality. Compared to white patients, Black patients' pain is twice as likely to be underestimated; Black children with appendicitis are 10 times less likely to receive pain medicine; Black birthing people are dying at four to five times the rate and their babies twice the rate. When it comes to medical racism, the past isn't dead. It isn't even past. In the fall of 2023, Dr. Zha took a break from clinical medicine and went on a quest to re-educate herself. Awarded the NERFC fellowship by the Massachusetts Historical Society,she researched the hidden history of American medicine at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, Smith College, and Brown University. After studying 34 archives, and 92 boxes of files, it became clear: medical racism is a tale as old as time. And all of us must work to break this vicious cycle.