'It is time to call out structural racism in medicine and work fervently to dismantle it'

Early in her career, gastroenterologist and health services researcher Dr. Rachel Issaka saw a patient who seemed unable to process that she, a Black woman, was one of their doctors. Her medical colleagues who were present said nothing. Both aspects of the encounter have stayed with her.

“Years later, my exchange with the patient and my team’s silence is still memorable,” writes Issaka in a new essay published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “As medical professionals, it is time to call out structural racism in medicine and work fervently to dismantle it.” 

Read Issaka’s complete essay in JAMA, in which the faculty member at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center issues a call to action to the entire medical field. From individual doctors through health care systems, she writes, all of medicine must work together to dismantle the structural racism that harms not only Black medical professionals and patients but the country overall.