Many of our staff members are following along with Color Code, a new podcast that is examining racial inequities in American health care. Produced by STAT and hosted by Nicholas St. Fleur, this series started on March 21st and is releasing a new episode every other week. Each episode is about 30 minutes and features compelling stories, interviews, and research.
We invite you to listen in. We will be sharing some additional readings and resources here on our blog to simplify further exploration of each episode's theme. We will go two episodes at a time, recognizing that some of us are bingers, while others may choose to savor each episode at a time.
To get started, you can access links to the podcast through these various providers: Spotify, Stitcher, Apple, and Google.
Episode 1: "Medicine lost the trust of many Black Americans – how can we mend that?" explores the roots of medical mistrust among Black communities. COVID vaccines brought the historical mistrust of the medical establishment to the forefront of many news stories and policy discussions…but medical mistrust has deep roots. This episode explores those roots and ways in which relationships between patients and providers can be repaired. To learn more about medical mistrust, consider reading or watching:
- "Duke Hospital's Racial Past: Five Stories Worth Knowing" by Jeffrey Baker, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and the Practice of History. Medicine Grand Rounds. Duke University School of Medicine. September 17, 2021.
- Love, S. One blood : the death and resurrection of Charles R. Drew. Chapel Hill, NC : The University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
- Newman AM. Moving beyond mistrust: Centering institutional change by decentering the white analytical lens. Bioethics. 2022 Mar;36(3):267-273. doi: 10.1111/bioe.12992.
- Bogart LM, Dong L, Gandhi P, Klein DJ, Smith TL, Ryan S, Ojikutu BO. COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions and Mistrust in a National Sample of Black Americans. J Natl Med Assoc. 2022 Jan;113(6):599-611. doi: 10.1016/j.jnma.2021.05.011.
- Thompson HS, Manning M, Mitchell J, Kim S, Harper FWK, Cresswell S, Johns K, Pal S, Dowe B, Tariq M, Sayed N, Saigh LM, Rutledge L, Lipscomb C, Lilly JY, Gustine H, Sanders A, Landry M, Marks B. Factors Associated With Racial/Ethnic Group-Based Medical Mistrust and Perspectives on COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Participation and Vaccine Uptake in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2021 May 3;4(5):e2111629. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.11629.
Episode 2: "How one 1910 report curtailed Black medical education for over a century" centers on the 1910 Flexner Report and the resulting closure of five of the seven Black medical colleges at the time. This episode also features Sandra Parham, MLIS, Library Executive Director of the Meharry Medical College Library. We have a professional proclivity to institutional history and huge respect for our medical librarian colleagues around the country. While many listeners may be well-acquainted with the Flexner report, some may be only recently aware of its racial consequences. If you are interested in learning more after listening, consider reading:
- Bailey M. The Flexner Report: Standardizing Medical Students Through Region-, Gender-, and Race-Based Hierarchies. Am J Law Med. May 2017;43(2-3):209-223. doi:10.1177/0098858817723660
- Campbell KM, Corral I, Infante Linares JL, Tumin D. Projected Estimates of African American Medical Graduates of Closed Historically Black Medical Schools. JAMA Netw Open. Aug 3 2020;3(8):e2015220. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.15220
- Laws T. How Should We Respond to Racist Legacies in Health Professions Education Originating in the Flexner Report? AMA J Ethics. Mar 1 2021;23(3):E271-275. doi:10.1001/amajethics.2021.271
- Miller LE, Weiss RM. Revisiting black medical school extinctions in the Flexner era. J Hist Med Allied Sci. Apr 2012;67(2):217-43. doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrq084
- Steinecke A, Terrell C. Progress for whose future? The impact of the Flexner Report on medical education for racial and ethnic minority physicians in the United States. Acad Med. Feb 2010;85(2):236-45. doi:10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181c885be
Stay tuned to our blog for recommend readings for future episodes, about one post for every two episodes, once a month. We welcome your feedback and comments.