Black Doctors Charge Medical Racial Profiling

A decade ago the AMA was so alarmed by the worsening crisis in the number of Black doctors that it co-founded the Commission to End Health Care Disparities with the National Medical Assn., an African-American physician’s advocacy group, to figure out ways to increase the number of Black doctors. It has lobbied for an increase in federal funding for programs specifically geared to train minority students in medical and health profession careers and it even has filed briefs with the Supreme Court urging it not to eliminate race as a factor in student admissions to medical schools. These are important steps to take. However, they will be wasted efforts, without a fair, unbiased, and even handed standard state medical oversight agencies, such as the California Medical Board, deal with the physicians its charged with policing. Medical racial profiling is anything but that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network. Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter.