Achieving Racial Equity Within Medical Institutions: An Appeal for Action

In late May 2020, a global outpouring of grief and rage swept our world as news emerged that George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in police custody, was publicly murdered on a busy street in Minneapolis. The cruel and casual disregard for Mr Floyd ’s humanity as he cried for his mother has since haunted our public conscience, shattering widely held perceptions of a color-blind, post-racial era. Intractable structural racism—the sum of mutually reinforcing policies, institutional practices, and cultural norms that systematically discrimina te against persons of color1—continues to exact a terrible toll in all areas of our lives: the criminal justice system and mass incarceration, housing, education, food security, and indeed health care.
Source: Mayo Clinic Proceedings - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Perspective and Controversy Source Type: research