As I experience it, racism is America's gangrene. There are times when affected extremities have been treated with low grade antibiotics, but collectively we have never been able to excise the rotted flesh from the body politic. Instead for the most part, we drag the infected along, pretend not to notice its stench all the while periodically tightening the tourniquet, quite sure that cutting off flow to the problem will somehow make it go away. It won't you know.
Recently, the American Medical Association, the largest and most powerful association of doctors, apologized for the way it had shut out black doctors and refused to share information or resources with them. What information? I don't know. But the directors of the AMA believe this exclusion by the white medical establishment was serious enough that the practice of medicine in America was weakened. ...
Here's an example:
Transplant surgeon Clive Callender has hurtful memories of being the only Black doctor at medical meetings in the 1970s, met with stark silence when he pleaded for better access to transplant organs for Blacks.Another example:
When Dr. Edward W. Reed left Meharry Medical College to enter private practice in Memphis in 1962, membership in the Memphis & Shelby County Medical Society not being opened to people of color like him was an unwritten rule.It 's so sad really. I choked up as I read about the AMA's apology, so much for that Hippocratic Oath. I am just starting to read Harriet A. Washington's 'Medical Apartheid.' The evidence of longstanding racism in the medical treatment of black people is hard and strong medicine.
That meant that Reed also couldn't join the American Medical Association or its Tennessee affiliate. And at that time, none of Memphis' three major hospitals had a black doctor on their staff, the retired surgeon recalled.
Reed, now 87, would go on to integrate those hospitals and make his mark on the medical profession. Last spring, he was one of three doctors recognized by the Tennessee Medical Association with 2008 outstanding physician awards.
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"It was a long time coming," Reed said about the apology. "It's diminishing, but you have some disparities continuing. The magic wand has not been waved and it's all disappeared."
> Join the Discussion on the apology in Black Voices Community
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By: AfricansRSunGods on 7/24/2008 12:39AM
White doctors had to keep Black doctors away from the truth! They couldn't tell Black doctors, they were poisoning Black people, through fake vaccination shots, as they still do today! Rev Wright told some hard ugly facts! People don't really know what they're injecting into new born's either. Kids get way too many shots before turning two years old. They even give White kids autism, through "vaccination shots" these days.
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By: LD on 7/24/2008 1:12AM
yeah....Im was listening to Bro. Louis Farrakhan talk about the "Elimination of a whole race" (speaking about us Blacks) and it was so interesting that I'm gonna see what else he speaks on because somehow I'm beginning to see a lot of truth in what he says.
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By: Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D. on 7/24/2008 11:48PM
As a Mississippi Black physician, Baptist Medical Missionary and national advocate for health care for the poor and disenfranchised, I was glad to learn of the American Medical Association (AMA) apology for racial discrimination against black physicians. However, I feel the apology falls short of what is needed to bring healing and racial reconciliation to nation's black physicians.
I consider the apology by the AMA for historic racial discrimination against African-American physicians a necessary first step toward the resolution of a greater problem.
The apology does not include recent discriminatory policies and practices that have been supported by AMA leadership. I hope that former AMA President and board member, Dr. J. Edward Hill, will apologize for what he has done to undermine the medical practices of black physicians practicing in the poorest counties in America.
Dr. J. Edward Hill, while President of the AMA, was a board member of the Medical Assurance Company of Mississippi (MACM), the primary company for providing medical malpractice insurance for Mississippi physicians at the time. MACM's all white physician Board of Directors refused to renew the medical malpractice insurance policies of several black physicians, forcing me to close my Christian Family Health Centers in some of the poorest counties in America, located for in the Mississippi Delta in 2004. I have never had a medical malpractice judgement or claim against my medical practice after over 15 years of service to the poorest of the poor.
I believe the AMA must also openly and honestly address the issue of restitution from past and present policies and practices of discrimination toward black physicians.
Let us not forget our black patients whose access to health care has been limited because of discrimination against black physicians. Black physicians have lost their practices and livelihood because of racism. The medical profession needs healing from the legacy of racial discriminatory policies supported by the AMA.
I stand ready to work with the AMA to accomplish that goal.
"DOC"
Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D.
Founder & Chairman
American Pain Institute (API)
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
Myers Foundation For Indigent Health Care & Community Development
www.AMAApology.com
www.Juneteenth.us
www.njclc.com
www.19thofJune.com
www.AmericanPainInstitute.org
www.MyersFoundation.net
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By: Adrienne on 7/27/2008 7:24PM
First off I will like to start off by giving my thanks and deeply appreciation to the Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D for all the work he's doing for our people.
Secondly this is beyond sad. It's a disgrace. Brother Farrakhan and brother Rev. Wright have spoken the truth and nothing but the truth and people just don't get it. These people aren't trying to hurt Mr. Obama, but are trying to help us see the truth and see that racism isn't gone. Some of us want to believe and hope that these racist White people will want to unite with us, but open your eyes and see that's not going to happen. Unite with people who want to unite with us and leave the rest in the dust.
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