Posted on 07/10/2008 6:20:36 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
The country's largest medical association is set to issue a formal apology today for its historical antipathy toward African American doctors, expressing regret for a litany of transgressions, including barring black physicians from its ranks for decades and remaining silent during battles on landmark legislation to end racial discrimination.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"I applaud the AMA for doing this. In the current climate of health care, it is a very timely gesture," he said. "Less than 5 percent of physicians are African Americans, and that needs to be changed. This cannot be changed by African American physicians alone, and we all need to move forward together."
Can someone explain to me WHY it is the AMA's fault only 5% of the doctors are black??
Crazy.
the south africanization of the united states is progressing
and we’ll all be publicly apologizing for something.
I’m glad this happened. I feel so much less guilty now.
Reparations are on.the.way.
bttt
With affirmative action, it is a good, honest bet that a random black physician is less qualified and less capable than a random white or Asian physician.
This is a please Massa Obama, don’t socialize us, we will pay our tribute to the race baiters. What gutless drivel. This pandering makes me ill.
The Medical profession was built on trust that your physician had actually suffered though a course of training and testing that weeded out most of the incompetents. The idea apologizing for someone else’s failure leads to tokenism that will hurt the entire health care industry and make the qualifications of every black doctor suspect. Why do we trust Indians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Japanese and other minorities who have managed to get licensed in this country.
After all, we are talking here about doctors not token lawyers.
You’ve got to hit the books and start seriously studying science and mathematics in GRADE SCHOOL if you seriously want to get into Medical School. This leaves a lot less time to prepare for an extremely unlikely career as a rap artist or professional basketball player. Honest African American leaders should be hammering this point at every turn. I counseled an African American student on this point years ago when we were both in the 11th grade, and he is Physician today. I’d like to think I made a difference in his life, but I don’t know if he even remembers.
I suspect that the positions the AMA has taken on certain social issues and dictating practice guidelines, plus outrageous membership fees, has conributed to the decline in membership.
Oh stop it already. It’s not where we came from, it’s how we’ve progressed. I personally picked my doctors (HMO you know)and it’s 2 black females........and darn good ones too! 40 or so years ago, these doctors would have probably been treating patients out of a shanty in the poor side of town. Give it a rest......:(
I’m still waiting for the apology to women of all color from the AMA...wait, only blacks are a minority to whom we must apologize ?
Maybe the same quotas that got the Obamas into Ivy League should be applied to USMLE...
You don't have to "bet." It's a fact. Blacks are accepted into med school with lower MCAT scores than whites. Plus, the majority of these lesser intelligent blacks receive scholarships.
That means that, since there are only so many slots in med school, that more intelligent whites were rejected.
That fact alone prevents me from using a black doctor. I prefer not to take the chance that I'm putting my life in the hands of someone who got where he is only because of "white guilt."
I do applaud the AMA for this, if you read the article then you’ll see that they banned several black medical groups after 1954. That means there are still many black doctors ALIVE TODAY that were discriminated against by the AMA. Those people deserve an apology.
The AMA did the same thing with Jews last century. They never apologized, and Jews don’t seem to be bothered by it. And you can be damn sure there are a lot more Jewish doctors than black ones.
The apology will not be enough. It is a declaration of guilt. The victim crowd will take advantage of that guilt and demand more and more special privileges.
| Mex | P. R. | Cuban | Black | Asian | Amer Ind. | White | Mix | |
| MCAT VR | 7.9 | 6.4 | 8.3 | 6.9 | 8.8 | 7.8 | 9.5 | 9.3 |
| MCAT PS | 7.9 | 6.8 | 8.5 | 7 | 9.9 | 9.2 | 9.3 | 9.3 |
| MCAT BS | 8.5 | 7.4 | 9.1 | 7.4 | 10 | 7.9 | 9.8 | 9.8 |
| Totals: | 24.3 | 20.6 | 25.9 | 21.3 | 28.7 | 24.9 | 28.6 | 28.4 |
| % of the max | 0.846689895 | 0.717770035 | 0.902439024 | 0.742160279 | 1 | 0.867595819 | 0.996515679 | 0.989547038 |
The AMA has boundless respect for human life? Now I have heard everything.
the south africanization of the united states is progressing
and we’ll all be publicly apologizing for something.
The AMA since its beginning has tried to keep down the number of medical schools, in order to keep down the number of doctors. The 1910 (Abraham) Flexner Report, funded by the Carnegie Foundation, resulted in the closing of 5 of the 10 then-existing Black medical schools, as well as a number of white medical schools. Granted, the schools closed were all of pretty low quality, but so were almost all medical schools. The effect was to reduce significantly the number of Black physicians in the years after that. Likewise it was 1940 before the number of women physicians rose to the level it had already reached in 1910, as a result of Flexner and the AMA's restrictions on who could be admitted to the deliberately limited number of slots in medical schools.
The AMA is not a professional society, it is more of a labor union that exists primarily to restrict the number of people entering the profession.
See http://www.unmc.edu/Community/ruralmeded/flexner.htm for more information.
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