"All Patients Are Not Treated as Equal": Black/African Americans' Social Contract in Medicine

• In Event: Antiracism and Critical Race Theory

Abstract

Medicine and society have a long-standing relationship that has been characterized as a social contract, a conceptualization that originates from political science to describe a commitment between two parties in a society. However, Mills argues that any social contract that exists in society harbors racism at its core, and was created to protect members of the tribes of Europe (i.e. White people) and their genetic descendants. Given that in the U.S., the racial contract can be traced as far back as the 1600s when Black individuals were traumatized and abused by the medical profession, this study aims to characterize the social contract that Black physicians have with society, taking into consideration the larger mistreatment of Black individuals throughout medicine’s history.

Authors

• Tasha R. Wyatt, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

• Nicole Winston

• DeJuan White, Emory University

• Taryn Taylor, Emory University

• Joslyn Richards