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Showing results for tags 'Racism'.
Found 125 results
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Content ArticleThis is the transcript of a Westminster Hall debate in the House of Commons on Black Maternal Health Awareness Week 2022, dedicated to raising awareness about disparities in maternal outcomes.
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Content ArticleLocum GP Manjula Arora was given a month’s suspension by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MTPS) in May 2022 after a complaint to the General Medical Council (GMC) that centred on whether or not she had been promised a laptop by her employer. The ruling was overturned and the GMC conducted a review of the case that found that a legal test around dishonesty was incorrectly applied. The two co-chairs of the GMC review highlight some of its recommendations in this opinion piece in the BMJ. They argue that while the NHS is very diverse, it is not very inclusive and that structural racism affects the treatment of and opportunities available to staff from different cultural backgrounds. They call for greater compassion and cultural competency in the GMC, and for healthcare services to manage concerns on a local level before referring cases to the GMC.
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Content ArticleIn this article for The Cut magazine, author Rae Nudson looks at the sometimes severe pain that women face when having gynaecology examinations and procedures, and how this has been accepted and normalised by healthcare professionals. She highlights a lack of understanding about the complex nature of pain, which leads to an expectation that women just need to 'put up' with pain during cervical screening, IUD fitting, hysteroscopy and other procedures. Speaking to women who have had painful and traumatising experiences, she discusses the long-term impact that these negative experiences can have, including putting women off attending potentially life-saving screening appointments. She also outlines the particular problems faced by Black women during gynaecological procedures, caused by incorrect assumptions that they feel pain less and are more able to tolerate it. These assumptions are rooted in historical oppression and racism, but research demonstrates that they still have a bearing on how healthcare professionals treat women from Black and other minority backgrounds.
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Content ArticleThe Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG) has launched a commission on Covid-19, Disablism and Systemic Racism to explore how the worst impacts of Covid have fallen on Disabled people, particularly those from Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic groups. The Commission is examining the extent to systemic neglect of social care over many years has caused negative outcomes that have been worsened by confused approaches by the Government during the pandemic. This includes poor implementation of policy and conflicting guidance. The work will gather evidence, scrutinise the Department of Health and Social Care’s policies and responses to the pandemic, including ways in which systemic racism may have further worsened outcomes for disabled people of colour, and build solutions and support for transformative and sustainable change in social care, based on justice and human rights. The Commission is calling on Disabled people and people with long-term health conditions from Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic groups to share their views and experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic as part of its 'Call for Views and Experiences'. They are also keen to hear from families, carers and people who work in social care.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, published by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Kedar Mate discusses the need to explicitly address race and racism in order to work towards health equity. "We never legislated long waiting times. We never imposed rules, regulations, customs, and norms for ineffective care. We did, however, legislate inequity."
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Content ArticleHeralded as an easy fix for health services under pressure, data technology is marching ahead unchecked. In this article for the BMJ, Poppy Noor asks whether there a risk it could compound inequalities.
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Content ArticleThe term “racism” is rarely used in the medical literature. Most physicians are not explicitly racist and are committed to treating all patients equally. However, they operate in an inherently racist system. Structural racism is insidious, and a large and growing body of literature documents disparate outcomes for different races despite the best efforts of individual healthcare professionals. If we aim to curtail systematic violence and premature death, clinicians and researchers will have to take an active role in addressing the root cause. Structural racism, the systems-level factors related to, yet distinct from, interpersonal racism, leads to increased rates of premature death and reduced levels of overall health and well-being. Like other epidemics, structural racism is causing widespread suffering, not only for black people and other communities of colour but for our society as a whole. It is a threat to the physical, emotional, and social well-being of every person in a society that allocates privilege on the basis of race. Hardeman et al. believe that as clinicians and researchers, we wield power, privilege, and responsibility for dismantling structural racism — and in this New England Journal of Medicine article the authors highlight recommendations for clinicians and researchers who wish to do so.
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Content Article
Diagnosing and treating systemic racism (16 July 2020)
Sam posted an article in Health inequalities
For physicians, the words “I can’t breathe” are a primal cry for help. As many physicians have left their comfort zones to care for patients with COVID-19–associated respiratory failure, the role of the medical profession in addressing this life-defining need has rarely been clearer. But as George Floyd’s repeated cry of “I can’t breathe” while he was being murdered by a Minneapolis police officer has resounded through the country, the physician’s role has seemed less clear. Police brutality against black people, and the systemic racism of which it is but one lethal manifestation, is a festering public health crisis. Can the medical profession use the tools in its armamentarium to address this deep-rooted disease? Evans et al. explore this further in an Editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. -
Content ArticleMedicine is a mirror for the racial injustice in our society; it is a field riddled with racial disparities in everything from research funding to patient care to life expectancy. There may be no population of patients whose healthcare and outcomes are more affected by racism than those with sickle cell disease (SCD). Patients with SCD are too often marginalised and dismissed while seeking medical care when their bodies hurt and they cannot breathe. As medical leaders around the United States issue statements denouncing racial injustice and calling for us to “dismantle racism at every level,” we must ensure that these pledges translate into durable improvements for patients with SCD. Alexandra Power-Hays and Patrick T. McGann propose a number of changes to reduce the impact of racism on patients with SCD in the US.
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Content Article“Structural racism” refers to the ways in which historical and contemporary racial inequities in outcomes are perpetuated by social, economic, and political systems, including mutually reinforcing systems of health care, education, housing, employment, the media, and criminal justice. It results in systemic variation in opportunity according to race or ethnic background — for example, in racial differentials in access to health care. Ansell et al. use the case study of a 60-year-old Black woman with breast cancer as an example of structural racism and propose three critical strategies for addressing structural racism in health care. These strategies hinge on shifting the focus of work on racial differences in health outcomes from biologic or behavioural problems to the design of health care organisations and other social institutions.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic clearly illustrates the intersection of structural racism, social risk factors, and health. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on COVID-19 infection and mortality rates show high incidences in specific geographic regions. Further investigation within Louisiana revealed that rates of hospitalisation and death in Black patients were twice as high as would be expected on the basis of demographic representation. It has been hypothesised that increased exposure to COVID-19 among Black Americans is attributable to greater representation in service occupations and a greater likelihood of living in inner cities with high population density.
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Content Article
Stolen breaths (16 July 2020)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Improving patient safety
In this perspective for the New England Journal of Medicine, Harderman et al. recommend that healthcare systems engage, at the very least, in five practices to dismantle structural racism and improve the health and well-being of the black community and the country. -
Content ArticleAppalling racial inequities in health exist in nearly every realm that researchers have examined. These inequities are a dramatic manifestation of the structural violence that plagues our society. Deborah Cohan, an obstetrician, gives her perspective on this in her article in the New England Journal of Medicine. "How am I confronting the underlying forces that facilitate increased suffering and death among certain groups because of their skin color? Although it’s necessary, it is not enough for me to provide respectful health care to pregnant women of color. If I truly want to be part of the solution, I need to explore those parts of me that are most unwholesome, embarrassing, unflattering, and generally not discussed in the context of one’s career." Her goal is to dismantle the insidious thoughts that reinforce a hierarchy based on race, education, and other markers of privilege that separate her from others. "These thoughts, fed by implicit bias, are more common than I find easy to admit. Although I know not to believe everything I think, I also know that thoughts guide attention, and attention guides actions. Until I bring to light and hold myself accountable for my own racist tendencies, I am contributing to racism in health care."
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Content ArticleDisparities in healthcare exist because of socioeconomic factors, structural racism and implicit bias. The panelists in this video identify the problems and discuss what solutions are in place that could improve health disparities such as medical education, more training for underrepresented minority physicians, more funding for research, and fast-tracking publication of research. Furthermore, the panelists explore how the field of dermatology and other medical specialties can address these issues.
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Content ArticleConvened shortly after President Trump’s inauguration in 2017, the Lancet Commission on public policy and health in the Trump era, offers the first comprehensive assessment of the detrimental legislation and executive actions during Trump’s presidency with devastating effects on every aspect of health in the USA. The Lancet Commission traces the decades of policy failures that preceded and fueled Trump’s ascent and left the USA lagging behind other high-income nations on life expectancy. The report warns that a return to pre-Trump era policies is not enough to protect health. Instead, sweeping reforms are needed to redress long-standing racism, weakened social and health safety nets that have deepened inequality, and calls on the important role of health professionals in advocating for health care reform in the USA.
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Content ArticleRecent work has emphasised the benefits of patient-physician concordance on clinical care outcomes for underrepresented minorities, arguing it can boost communication and increase trust. Authors of this study explored concordance in a setting where racial disparities are particularly severe: childbirth. In the United States, Black newborns die at three times the rate of White newborns. Results examining 1.8 million hospital births in the state of Florida between 1992 and 2015 suggest that newborn-physician racial concordance is associated with a significant improvement in mortality for Black infants. Results further suggest that these benefits manifest during more challenging births and in hospitals that deliver more Black babies. They found no significant improvement in maternal mortality when birthing mothers share race with their physician. You can also read the news coverage in the Washington Post here. To access the research, follow the link below.
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Content ArticleResearch has shown differential attainment by ethnicity in the medical workforce across all measures of training and career progression. In this editorial, published in the BMJ, Victor Adebowale and Mala Rao argue that a race equality observatory is needed to provide leadership and data.
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Content ArticleWomen from ethnic minorities are voicing their concerns that they face endemic structural racism when seeking and accessing healthcare, and they feel that their symptoms and signs are more often dismissed. It is vital that patients are listened to when they say that they feel this is also due to structural racism in healthcare.
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Content ArticleIn medical schools, students seek robust and mandatory anti-racist training. Activists especially want to see their institutions recognise their own missteps, as well as the racism that has accompanied past medical achievements. Read Elizabeth Lawrence's article in the Washington Post.
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Content Article
The MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care report found that black women in the UK are five times as likely as white women to die during pregnancy or childbirth. -
Content ArticleMore than 1 in 10 women will experience postnatal depression within the first year after giving birth. With a recent study showing that postnatal depression is 13% higher among black and ethnic minority women than it is among white women, it raises significant questions around whether these women are receiving the right treatment and support.
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Content ArticleProfessor Donna Kinnair, the head of the Royal College of Nursing, in her blog to the Guardian talks about why the health service is failing people of colour – both those using it and its workforce. "As a black leader, you are always aware that if you are not a good role model, someone coming up behind you may not be afforded the same opportunity you’ve been given. There are, sadly, too few of us. We only have 10 black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) chief nurses across the whole of the NHS in England. The leadership of the NHS is not reflective of the workforce, or the communities we serve."
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Content ArticleThis short animated video explores the issue of prioritising equality in shared decision making, to ensure that all patients' and family members' values are sought and incorporated in treatment decisions.
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Content ArticleIn this article, published by Ayiecho Odembi Consultancy, the author draws on personal experiences as a Black nurse and Patient to illustrate the link between racism and patient safety. "Nursing while black on the NHS is a skill I had mastered but nothing had prepared me for being a patient while black on the NHS and how the system is stacked against you and how lonely, frustrating, anxious, helpless and dare I say angry you feel while also wrestling with the guilt of essentially raging against your employer and not wanting to cause a fuss because it is the NHS, you love the NHS, you are constantly reminded how lucky we are to have the NHS, so it would be in very bad faith to complain."
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Content ArticleSince the Covid-19 pandemic began, a disproportionate number of BAME patients have reported not having their Long-Covid symptoms taking seriously. In this blog, Sheeva Azma looks at the impact of racial profiling on patient safety in the US, highlighting how health inequalities have worsened during the pandemic. She interviews Chimére Smith, who developed Long Covid after catching the virus in March 2020 and was left unable to work. Smith talks about the importance of representation in medicine, sharing how black doctors listened to her and took her seriously, when every white doctor she had seen dismissed her symptoms.
