In an August column in STAT News, Megan Mahoney, MD, Stanford Health Care's chief of staff, wrote, \"In medical school, I was diligently trained to report to my attending physicians the age, race, and gender of my patients -- in that order.\" <\/p>\n
She wondered how a doctor would describe her, a biracial woman, and what the medical consequences might be for her. <\/p>\n
For a 1:2:1 podcast, I spoke with Mahoney, a family medicine clinician, about her background; about race and how it plays out in clinical settings; and about what needs to change to overcome systemic racial inequities in the nation's health care system. <\/p>\n
This Q&A is edited and condensed from that conversation. <\/p>\n
You wrote in your column: \"It's time to stop using skin color and race in medicine and see patients for who they really are.\" It came out of your experience as a biracial woman. Tell me about your parents.<\/p>\n
My father was born to Irish-American parents. After graduating from prep school and the U.S. Naval Academy, he married, but he lost his wife to meningitis. He decided to go into the priesthood. As a priest, he began working in Memphis and became very active in the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n
My mother was born in Memphis -- the Jim Crow South -- as one of 13 children. Sometimes all the family had to eat were peaches from the trees in their backyard.<\/p>\n
She received a full scholarship to a small Catholic college in Kansas. She returned to Memphis after college to teach at a high school. She also was treasurer at the Catholic parish church where my father served, which is how they met. <\/p>\n
My mother received a PhD in mathematics, and later was one of the first African-American women in the United States to become a university president. She served as president of Lincoln University of Missouri for seven years. <\/p>\n
My father was by her side throughout her career. It was quite a love story. <\/p>\n
When were you first aware of being biracial?<\/p>\n
I grew up in Columbus, Ohio. I was in kindergarten, the very first day of school, on the playground with a group of kids. They looked at me quizzically, trying to size me up, and asked, \"So, what are you?\" I had no idea what they were referring to.<\/p>\n
Later, at the dinner table, I asked my parents, \"There's this question I'm not really sure how to answer.\" They told me to go back the next day. If I was asked again, I should respond, \"I'm mixed.\" I felt very prepared. I went back and was asked again, \"What are you?\" I responded, \"I'm mixed up.\" <\/p>\n
As you moved through life, college and medical school, how did being a biracial woman impact you?<\/p>\n
For most of my adult life, I was categorized as \"other.\" On applications for various schools, I've had to be limited in how I describe my racial background. They'd ask, White, African American, Asian, Pacific Islander, Hispanic, but there often was not a box that gave me an opportunity to write in, \"White and Black.\"<\/p>\n
When I was in high school, my counselors were pushing me towards Ivy League colleges, but I selected a school -- UC Berkeley -- because of its racial diversity.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I could experience being surrounded by people of all different backgrounds. I can just share with you that that sense of belonging was truly cherished. For once, I didn't have to be asked, \"Where are you really from?\" It didn't matter.<\/p>\n
In your opinion piece for STAT news, you write that it's time for medicine to look beyond race as a determinant factor and see people as individuals.<\/p>\n
The practice of medicine has not truly accounted for mixed-race individuals and lacks the precision to recognize our whole, inclusive identities. A lot of it is based in our history in medicine.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, there is now a greater appreciation that race is a social concept, rather than a genetically bounded category, thanks to the genomic revolution. We know now that we, as a species, share 99.9% of our DNA with each other, and that our traits that are typically associated with race are not linked genetically to health-related genes.<\/p>\n
There is a greater appreciation for the role of environmental, social and behavioral factors, their influence on health outcomes, and how they probably determine over 70% of what determines health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That exceeds the contribution made by genetics and even medical treatment.<\/p>\n
Black Americans have higher rates of morbidity and mortality for COVID-19. Systemic inequities also bear out for Latinos and Indigenous Americans. Are racial inequities baked into the health care system?<\/p>\n
Sadly, racism and bias are baked into most, if not all, of our institutions. We need to identify where they exist and then address and change them. I'm committed to that.<\/p>\n
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that one in five Black Americans say they've experienced discrimination while seeking health care in a clinic.<\/p>\n
That's a stark statistic, and it likely does reflect the experiences of Black Americans. I think that we as physicians are morally obligated to practice cultural humility -- the fact that we all carry unconscious biases. We all do. We have to become aware of that and approach it with a certain level of humble inquiry, questioning ourselves in how we're practicing medicine.<\/p>\n
How do the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many others, and the data you're talking about, meet this particular moment? Are we at an inflection point?<\/p>\n
I think so. There is a greater interest in raising our collective awareness around these issues. I've also noticed that there is a concerted effort behind wanting to make curricular changes in medical school, so we are understanding how race and racism impacts health and health outcomes.<\/p>\n
I'm seeing changes I've never witnessed before, happening throughout our institutions.It's really an important time.<\/p>\n
Top image of Megan Mahoney, MD, with a patient by Steve Fisch. Family photos courtesy of Mahoney.<\/p>\n
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See original here: In an August column in STAT News, Megan Mahoney, MD, Stanford Health Care's chief of staff, wrote, \"In medical school, I was diligently trained to report to my attending physicians the age, race, and gender of my patients -- in that order.\" She wondered how a doctor would describe her, a biracial woman, and what the medical consequences might be for her. For a 1:2:1 podcast, I spoke with Mahoney, a family medicine clinician, about her background; about race and how it plays out in clinical settings; and about what needs to change to overcome systemic racial inequities in the nation's health care system. This Q&A is edited and condensed from that conversation Continue reading
\nBiracial Stanford physician: We must look beyond race in medicine - Scope<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"