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What Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Would Want Us to Know About Health Care Disparities

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Air date: Thursday, October 13, 2011, 1:00:00 PM
Time displayed is Eastern Time, Washington DC Local
Views: Total views: 245 (2 Live, 243 On-demand)
Category: Health Disparities
Runtime: 01:20:08
Description: NIH Health Disparities Seminar Series

Forty-three years after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are still struggling as a nation to overcome injustice in health care, which Dr. King viewed as "the most shocking and inhumane" form of inequality. According to our speaker, 13 groups of Americans still experience notable health disparities when compared to the general population. Some contributing factors, such as biology and access to care, have been well documented, but the effect of physician bias on health disparities has yet to be fully explored. Dr. White will share the extensive research and interviews he conducted with doctors around the country to explore whether subconscious stereotyping of patients influences treatment. His presentation will examine how physician bias impacts health disparities, and suggest specific ways to reduce that impact.

Dr. Augustus A. White, III, is author of "Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care," with David Chanoff. The first African American graduate of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. White is an internationally recognized spine specialist and one of the preeminent orthopedic surgeons in the world.

White grew up in Memphis, Tennessee during the era of segregation. He attended the Mt. Hermon School for Boys in northeastern Massachusetts, where he and four other boys “of color” were accepted in 1949. From there White attended Brown University, where he was the first black president of his traditionally white fraternity. He trained at Yale Medical Center becoming the first black surgical resident and, later, Yale’s first African American professor of surgery.
Author: Augustus A. White, III, MD, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School
 
CIT Live ID: 10685
Permanent link: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=10685