Book Review - Black Man in a White Coat by Anna Farlane

The White Coat Ceremony is a common rite of passage in American medical schools that is intended to welcome physicians-in-training into the institution of medicine. 

The white coat is meant to signify professionalism and trust with patients and the ceremony is a time to emphasize this. With students and physicians alike clad in their white coats (albeit coats of different lengths), the message is clear: In the practice of medicine, we are all equal.

However, once the glow of the ceremony has waned, and the white coats are shed—revealing the black and brown and white bodies underneath—the question remains: Are all physicians and, more importantly, all patients, treated equally?

In his memoir, Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine, Dr. Damon Tweedy addresses this question through an examination of race and its interactions with medicine at all levels of his medical training. 

His goal for Black Man in a White Coat was to ‘paint a fuller picture of the experiences of black patients, as well as that of the black doctors who navigate between the black community and the predominately white medical world’ (7).

Though Black Man in a White Coat focuses primarily on Dr. Tweedy’s thoughts and reflections on his medical training, he is far from the book’s only source. 

Drawing from other memoirs, history books, public health studies, and various other resources, Tweedy weaves a complex tapestry of information in support of his observations. This is most prominent in Part 1: Disparities, which includes the first four chapters of the book.

Chapter 1, ‘People Like Us’ explores Dr. Tweedy’s experiences with the tensions of being a black medical student and recipient of a diversity scholarship to Duke University School of Medicine. 

In Chapter 2, ‘Baby Mamas,’ Tweedy explores the complex interactions of health disparities though the stories of black mothers Tweedy met as a second-year medical student. 

Chapters 3 (‘Charity Care’) and 4 (‘Inner-City Blues’) document the socioeconomic challenges of access to health insurance and health education that patients faced during Dr. Tweedy’s time at a rural community health clinic and an inner-city emergency department.

The most compelling section of the memoir is Part II: Barriers, in which Tweedy shifts the focus of the memoir from the role of race on people’s health to the role of race in the practice of medicine. 

He recounts his experiences during his internship year through the lens of dealing with prejudiced patients (Chapter 5, ‘Confronting Hate’), prejudiced doctors (Chapter 6, ‘When Doctors Discriminate’), and prejudice against the LGBTQ community (Chapter 7, ‘The Color of HIV/AIDS’).

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Original review on: http://blogs.bmj.com