Racist Med School Yearbook Photos? Medicine’s Racism Problems Go Even Deeper

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is embroiled in controversy for admitting that he wore blackface at a party in the 1980s and for a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page. But the governor, a pediatric neurologist by training, told CBS he isn’t resigning, because “Virginia needs someone that can heal. There’s no better person to do that than a doctor.”

NPR spoke with another doctor, Damon Tweedy, about what message it sends to black patients to hear a prominent doctor tell the country that he has worn blackface. Tweedy is the author of Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine and is an associate professor of psychiatry at Duke University.

The debate in Virginia is only one episode in a long history of racism in medicine, Tweedy says. Many African-Americans may feel distrustful of physicians, stemming in part from the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment. This distrust has repercussions for the health of black people in America today, who may be less likely to stick with treatments or participate in medical research.