After an internal study confirmed there was a resounding history of racial bias in organized medicine, the nation’s most powerful physicians association issued a formal apology yesterday for its role in propagating the divide.
American Medical Association data show that fewer than 2 percent of its members are black, and that fewer than 3 percent of the nation’s one million medical students and physicians are black, the New York Times reported.
The AMA wants to work harder to support black physicians and beef up their ranks in organized medicine, said Ronald Davis, the group’s immediate past-president:
“The AMA is proud to support research about the history of the racial divide in organized medicine because by confronting the past we can embrace the future. The AMA is committed to improving its relationship with minority physicians and to increasing the ranks of minority physicians so that the workforce accurately represents the diversity of America’s patients.”
Details of the panel’s work will be made public next week on the Web site of the AMA’s Institute for Ethics to coincide with publication in a scientific journal.
One Comment
Andi Atwater: In the interests of full disclosure, your comments above should state the breakdown of diversity of medical students in American medical schools including osteopathic, chiropractic, podiatry schools and nursing programs.
Your comments would lead readers to believe that if only 2 or 3% of medical students and doctors are black, the other 97% or so are white caucasions.
My guess the percentages are similar to our schools and colleges, portions of white, black, hispanic, Asian, people from Indian sub-continent, Iranians, and so forth.
Presumably medical schools like other professional schools meet various education, experience and aptitude entry requirements in order to enroll people who have potential to succeed in the field and … are not in it for the money it pays.