In June of 1869, three Black physicians brought their applications to the Medical Society of the District of Columbia. They were looking to become members of a local professional organization—the kind of body that was, increasingly, gatekeeping who could work in medicine. At the time, the MSDC consisted entirely of white men. The American Medical […] The post The Shame of the Capital appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

As a physician, Shirlene Obuobi, 29, is just starting out, working on a cardiology fellowship after completing her residency at University of Chicago Medicine. But as a cartoonist, Obuobi is already a practiced hand. Her online persona, Shirlywhirl, M.D., is a favorite comic of medical Twitter and Instagram, and she recently signed on for a […] The post Drawing the Line appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

Researchers have, for decades, tried to catalogue racial disparities and identify what causes them. The first part of that task turns out to be the easy part. National records of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes all tell the same grim story about a disproportionate harm to Black people in the United States. But only […] The post Racism in the Black Body appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared racism “a serious public health threat” and director Rochelle Walensky outlined steps the agency would take to address it, including $2.25 billion that has been earmarked to address COVID-19-related health disparities. The agency is also launching a web portal, “Racism and Health,” as a hub […] The post Is Health Care’s Racism Treatable? appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

In the long debate over cash reparations—paying money to the descendants of enslaved people—very little has been written about their possible effects on health. That has changed in recent years. A modeling study published in 2021, for instance, argues that if reparations had been paid in Louisiana before the start of COVID-19, transmission in the […] The post Are Reparations an Answer to Black Health Disparities? appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

Women in medical research careers often have a rougher climb than their male counterparts. The pandemic didn’t make that any easier. While the overall production of research jumped during the early pandemic—submissions to medical journals rose for both men and women—that increase was about twice as high for early-career men as it was for early-career […] The post Women’s Research Careers and the COVID Iceberg appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

Last February, the Journal of the American Medical Association aired a podcast episode that would spark a heated conversation throughout the medical community. It featured two editors—both white male physicians—from its network of publications discussing the hot-button topic of structural racism. To promote the podcast, the journal posted the tweet: “No physician is racist, so […] The post Confronting Bias in Journals appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

It is now possible to imagine a world recovered from COVID-19. In that future, how will medicine have changed? These 10 essays explore the technical, social and political ripples of the pandemic. In the summer of 2020, physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital made their way to the State House in protest of the police killings of George […] The post A Turned Page on Racialized Medicine appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more

PHYSICIANS GENERALLY TRY NOT TO THINK OF RACE OR ETHNICITY when treating a patient. But too much sensitivity may be leaving stones unturned, says Esteban Burchard, a professor of medicine and pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco. The incidence of asthma, for instance, has strong ethnic correlations. So Burchard set out to collect […] The post A New Genomics of Race appeared first on Proto Magazine ..read more