num_pages: 294
description: One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race bias and the unique health problems of black AmericansWhen Damon Tweedy begins medical schoolhe 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 a moment that crystallizes the challenges he will face throughout his career. 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. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories he illustrates the complex social cultural and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community. These issues take on greater meaning when Tweedy is himself diagnosed with a chronic disease far more common among black people. 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.
language: English
title: Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine
publisher: Picador