scholarly journals Fighting Medical Racism with Education and Action

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-360
Author(s):  
Yi-Li Wu ◽  
Denise Tyson

Abstract Denise Tyson is the president of the Maryland Acupuncture Society (US), one of the state-level professional organizations that comprises the American Society of Acupuncturists. Following the police murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, she called on her colleagues in the acupuncture profession to take meaningful action against racism and to educate themselves about the long history of racist violence against African Americans. In July 2020 an editor of Asian Medicine interviewed Tyson to learn about her medical career and her perspectives on race and health care. The main themes of the interview include: her affinity for acupuncture and Chinese medicine, her experiences with racial bias in both biomedicine and integrative medicine, strategies for making acupuncture organizations more inclusive, and the crucial role that education plays in combating racism.

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-354
Author(s):  
Marta Hanson ◽  
Andy Pham

This article reproduces an exchange between academics and practitioners at the Sixth International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine (ICTAM VI) meeting in Austin about how the history of Chinese medicine could be more meaningful, interesting, and valuable to clinicians. It provides a brief history of exchanges, the panel proposal, the abstracts of the panelists, an edited transcript of the conversation, and some concluding remarks from the participants. As more and more practitioners of Chinese medicine outside of China spend time in China, learn Chinese, become culturally and linguistically bilingual or multilingual, they seek more knowledge about what they practise than they can get in current publications in English or other European languages. The panel and this article are intended to encourage further exchange, conversations, and cooperation that will lead to new histories of Chinese medicine relevant for practitioners as much as for other academics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (9) ◽  
pp. 2583-2589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Gilligan

ABSTRACT The “invisible army” of clinical microbiologists is facing major changes and challenges. The rate of change in both the science and technology is accelerating with no end in sight, putting pressure on our army to learn and adapt as never before. Health care funding in the United States is undergoing dramatic change which will require a new set of assumptions about how clinical microbiology is practiced here. A major challenge facing the discipline is the replacement of a generation of clinical microbiologists. In my opinion, it is incumbent on us in the invisible army to continue to work with the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) in meeting the future challenges faced by our discipline. In this commentary, I will first discuss some recent history of clinical microbiology within ASM and then some current challenges we face.


2000 ◽  
Vol 80 (11) ◽  
pp. 1112-1119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth B Purtilo

Abstract Ruth B Purtilo, known to many physical therapist students and clinicians through her numerous publications in the area of ethics, has influenced the delivery of health care nationally and internationally. Throughout her long career, she has educated us about the moral issues and courses of direction that guide us in our daily lives as health care professionals. Dr Purtilo has been a visiting professor or named lecturer to more than 30 different colleges and universities worldwide. Her publications, primarily on ethics in health care, include 8 books and more than 70 articles and chapters. In addition to being involved in APTA, Dr Purtilo has served as President of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics and was a founding member of the Society of Bioethics Consultation. She is a member of many other professional organizations, including the American Association of Bioethics, the American Philosophical Association, the Society for Health and Human Values, and the World Confederation for Physical Therapy. Dr Purtilo has been recognized by APTA as a recipient of the Golden Pen Award, the Helen Hislop Award for Outstanding Contributions to Professional Literature, and a Catherine Worthingham Fellowship.


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 552-558
Author(s):  
Benjamin S. Wilfond ◽  
Conrad V. Fernandez ◽  
Robert C. Green

Should children ever have genetic testing for adultonset conditions? For the last two decades, there have been general recommendations from professional organizations that discourage such testing. Until recently, such testing was only plausible in the context of a family history of a Mendelian condition that might prompt the parents (or an adolescent) to request testing for the adult-onset condition present within the family. In this context there has been a gradual shift in the direction of suggesting parents should have greater discretion to obtain such testing after careful consideration of risks and benefits by the family and the health care provider.


Author(s):  
Lasana T. Harris

The ninth chapter argues that the law punishes bad minds, not bad people; as a result, social cognition is paramount in legal decision-making. It then reviews the psychological literature on punishment, discussing motives. It then uses the racial history of America as a case study, highlighting how historic dehumanization during and after slavery shaped modern American racial problems. It reviews the literature on racial bias and the brain, then discusses the ‘black ape’ stereotype as a form of continued dehumanization of people of African descent in America. It then explores police shootings of people of African descent as a continuation of a dehumanization tradition in America, highlighting the role of flexible social cognition in facilitating these behaviors. Finally, it ends by recommending that labels like ‘African American’ need to be abandonned if American society is ever to move beyond its racial problems; a superordinate category is required that reduces arbitrary distinctions based on the social construction of race.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul U Unschuld

Seen from a distance, it is often difficult to distinguish one person from another. Normally, people have a head and a trunk, two arms and two legs, and apart from body height and circumference there is no way to see a person's individuality without being close enough to perceive the diversity of facial features, hair colours, etc. With ailments the situation is similar. At first glance, there is pain, an ulcer, or diarrhoea. It requires a closer look to distinguish between different types of pain, ulcer, or diarrhoea. In health care, attempts at healing ailments have, since antiquity, oscillated between a more distanced position and a closer look. That is, health care has developed along the lines of, first, concepts of illness grouping together many ailments that appear to look alike, and therefore require similar therapies, and, second, concepts of illness as individual ailments, each requiring an individual therapy. The history of medicine in China offers rich and fascinating data on a cultural discussion concerned with the issue of categorisation and individualism, and provides ample evidence of diverging solutions suggested by physician-intellectuals in the course of the past two millennia. A better knowledge of these discussions and diverging solutions will contribute to a more sober assessment of the role of theory in traditional Chinese medicine, and of differences and parallels between European and Chinese medicine.


2021 ◽  
pp. 270-295
Author(s):  
Sekou Franklin ◽  
Pearl K. Ford Dowe ◽  
Angela K. Lewis-Maddox

This chapter examines the Obama presidency, the politics of race and health care, and the role that African Americans played in shaping the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We argue that race—and specifically the elimination of racial and health disparities—was very much part of the ACA’s development. From the perspective of Black lawmakers health equity and patient protection advocates, who worked hand-in-glove with the Obama administration, the ACA was not race-neutral or indifferent to Blacks and the working poor. The law had special significance for African Americans despite Obama publicly discussing its impact in deracialized terms. Daniel Dawes, a leading advocate for health equity and author of the groundbreaking book 150 Years of Obamacare, called the ACA the “most comprehensive minority health law” and the “most inclusive [health] law” in the history of the United States. He identified sixty-two provisions that “directly address inequities in health care” that are embedded in the ACA.” This chapter thus argues that Obama’s ACA was substantively accountable to the coalition of Black lawmakers and activists—what we refer to as a policy ecosystem—who were purposeful about incorporating provisions in the bill designed to reduce racial disparities and income-based inequities in health care.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-337
Author(s):  
Yi-Li Wu ◽  
Tenisha Dandridge

Abstract Tenisha Dandridge is a cofounder and the current president of the Black Acupuncturist Association (US). She advocates using Chinese medicine and acupuncture to address the racial health disparities afflicting African Americans. In June 2020 an editor of Asian Medicine interviewed her about her career and medical activism. The main themes of the interview include: how racial bias results in disproportionately high rates of morbidity and mortality among African Americans; how the theories and therapies of Chinese medicine are well suited for addressing the psychophysiological harms caused by racial discrimination; why it is important to increase Black representation in the acupuncture profession; and how community-based modes of healing can expand African Americans’ interest in, access to, and utilization of acupuncture and ear seed acupressure.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document