Race and Health — A Persistent American Dilemma

Abstract

Twenty-five years ago, H. Jack Geiger — physician, civil rights activist, founder of community health centers — implied in an influential editorial that racism within the medical profession was contributing to health inequities between Black and White Americans. 1 He recommended that medical educators teach trainees about the dilemmas associated with race and health. A month earlier, I had started medical school, and though my working-class Black family faced premature chronic disease and death, I knew little of the health literature Geiger referenced.