Black Man in a White Coat

A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine

by Damon Tweedy (from Goodreads)

 

One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black Americans

 

When Damon Tweedy begins medical school, he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working-class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. The recipient of a scholarship designed to increase black student enrollment, Tweedy soon meets a professor who bluntly questions whether he belongs in medical school. Making matters worse, in lecture after lecture the common refrain for numerous diseases resounds, "More common in blacks than in whites."

 

Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community. In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care.