Making All Lives Matter in Medicine

by Michael Mensah, M.D.
JAMA Internal Medicine, October 1, 2017

I was in medical school when I learned that I did not matter in medicine.

One particular day on service started uneventfully. However, after the team’s discussion of a patient, all attention turned toward me when a

senior physician asked me a question about the rap music that had been playingin the background.

“Help me understand something:” I recall the physician saying. The physician asked about word choice in rap lyrics, and then, pretending to quote a rap song, repeated the word “nigger” several times in rapid-fire

succession.

So begins this important “Viwepoint” article in JAMA Internal Medicine.  Most of us will benefit from reading it.  Read full article.

Damon Tweedy's Book, Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine, eloquently covers the much of the same ground.