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by
Brooke Bunch
(Editor’s
note: Today we feature the lecture of Darrell Grace, D.O., a
Minority Health Month speaker. Next week we present the April 11
lecture of Nicholas Espinoza, D.O. (’90).)
The focus on Minority Health
Month continued April 7, with a lecture on the importance of
cultural competency as seen through the lens of the history of
health-care disparities among African-Americans.
OU-COM students and faculty
gathered to hear Darrell Grace, D.O., a graduate of
Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. She
is in private practice with Forum Health and the medical
director of Windsor Nursing Home. She established Grace Place
Medical Service, a clinic for the underserved, uninsured and
underinsured, in association with the Greater Youngstown
Coalition of Christians.
Grace presented “A New
Paradigm: Trust and Parity Through Cultural Competency,” which
focused on the health status and conditions of African Americans
in the early history of the settlement of this country by
Europeans to the present.
Using landmarks of the past,
Grace, a Centers for Osteopathic Research and Education clinical
professor and medical equity teacher, made the case for the
importance of minority physicians in America’s health care.
Grace said the disparities in
African-American health care can easily been seen throughout
history, dating all the way back to the period of slavery,
1619–1865, when slaves received little or no medical care.
“From this we developed a
separate black health-care system,” she said. “Even after
slavery ended, blacks rightly feared hospitals or were denied
treatment in hospitals. There was severe discrimination in the
early hospital system.”
Medical care for African
Americans suffered under the Jim Crow doctrine of “separate but
equal,” because according to Grace, medical care was far from
equal.
“It was a substandard medical
care,” she said.
Grace pointed out the ups and
downs in the health care of black Americans since the end of the
Reconstruction. The Flexner Report brought about the closure of
five black medical schools in 1910, further deepening the
health-care disparity. But in 1965, civil rights legislation
began a significant improvement in health care for blacks, said
Grace.
She noted a major millstone of
American medicine, the Tuskegee Syphilis study, which spanned
the years 1932–1972 and has been called the “longest
non-therapeutic study of human beings in history.” She said
fallout from the study helped to perpetuate a climate of
suspicion and distrust in the health-care system among black
Americans.
She addressed the under
representation of African Americans in America’s physician
population. According to a June 1999 U.S. Census, 12.8 percent
of the population was black, compared with just 2.5 percent
blacks in the physician population as of the year 2000, said
Grace.
“Since 1980, there’s been a
continued deterioration in black health care,” she said. “Blacks
have the worst death rates in 14 out of 16 leading causes of
death in the United States.”
As a result, the implementation
of cultural competency is critical in contemporary health care.
“Physicians must be
knowledgeable of the patient populations they serve,” said
Grace. “They need to understand disease incidence and prevalence
among minorities.”
She offered some tips for
future D.O.s when dealing with minority populations, such as:
never assume — always ask. Grace said, never address black
patients by their first names, do not use slang, listen without
judgment, do not mimic pronunciation and avoid “color
blindness.”
Grace concluded by professing
the need for affirmative action in medical schools, which can
help significantly increase minority enrollment. An advocate of
affirmative action, she said the policy can help alleviate the
health-care disparities experienced by minorities and create an
environment of cultural understanding by increasing the number
of minority physicians.
“I worked hard to get where I
am,” she said. “I’m a product of affirmative action, and I’m
proud of it.
“Minority patients are four
times more likely to be seen by minority physicians,” she said.
“So we need many more minority physicians than we currently
have.”
"And we
need cultural competency taught in all our medical schools.”
The lecture series will
continue Friday, April 22, with Chau Pham, D.O. (’95),
presenting “Ethnogeriatrics: The Southeast Asian Culture.”
Former OU-COM Dean Barbara Ross-Lee, D.O., will conclude the
series Thursday, April 28, with her presentation, “Wrap-Up:
Policy and Health Disparities.” Ross-Lee is currently dean of
New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic
Medicine.
All presentations are from noon
to 1 p.m. and are sponsored by the Center of Excellence for
Multicultural Medicine and the Office of Student Affairs. For
more information, please contact De-Anthony King,
academic enrichment administrator, at (740) 593-2465.
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News for
the week of April 11 – April 16
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