DeepSummary
The episode explores how race is used as a diagnostic tool in medicine, despite the lack of biological basis for race. Dr. Andrea Deyrup discusses her research into tracing the origins of race-based medical guidance, such as the claim that Black people are more prone to keloids, back to problematic and unscientific sources. She argues that using race as a diagnostic heuristic can lead to misdiagnoses and highlights the importance of recognizing socioeconomic factors rather than attributing health disparities to race.
Dr. Deyrup explains how medical students and doctors learn to associate race with certain conditions through textbooks, test prep materials, and licensing exams. She has met with organizations responsible for these exams to advocate for removing race-based questions, but they have largely been resistant to changing their approach. She emphasizes the need to shift away from race-based medicine and towards understanding how environmental factors and lack of access to healthcare contribute to health disparities.
The episode also touches on the complex interplay between socially-constructed race and biology. While biological race is not a valid scientific concept, socially-defined race does have real impacts on people's lived experiences, including exposure to toxins, stress, and access to care. Dr. Deyrup suggests that universal healthcare could help address many health disparities and encourages patients to question their doctors' assumptions about race and diagnoses.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Biological race is not a valid scientific concept, yet race is still widely used as a diagnostic tool in medicine.
- Using race as a heuristic or shortcut in diagnoses can lead to misdiagnoses and harmful assumptions.
- Many common race-based medical claims can be traced back to problematic, unscientific sources rooted in racism and pseudoscience.
- Medical students and doctors continue to learn to associate race with certain conditions through textbooks, test prep materials, and licensing exams.
- Health disparities are better explained by socioeconomic factors like lack of access to care, exposure to toxins, and stress, rather than race itself.
- Universal healthcare could help address many racial health disparities in the United States.
- Patients should question their doctors' assumptions about race and advocate for themselves in the diagnostic process.
- The medical field needs to directly confront its problematic history of using race in an unscientific manner and shift away from race-based practices.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “I actually had to email a journal office in South Africa saying, look, there's this paper. I really. I'm trying to find this, this 16%, and it may be in your paper. Can you send me a copy? I was like a dog with a bone. I went all the way back until I found it, and it was in a journal from 1930, 119 31. And that number had come through 90 years. And what had happened was there was this meeting in Strasbourg, France, and someone was talking about keloids, the guy who's from the Belgian Congo. And he says, well, I was in the Belgian Congo, and I looked at. Let's see. He looked at twelve black adult workers, and I. And I counted the keloids. 16% of them had keloids, okay?“ by Andrea Derup
- “The truth of the matter is she could have acute appendicitis or she could have an atopic pregnancy, and that could kill her. While you're thinking, oh, Native American with gallstones, just like I learned in my textbook.“ by Andrea Derup
- “You know, I feel like you can't get away from your origins unless you turn and face them and you call them out for what they are.“ by Andrea Derup
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3/13/24
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