J Natl Med Assoc
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Thirty-one black medical students attending five white medical schools were seen in individual interviews of one to two hours to evaluate their perceptions of racism in their medical school education. The interviews focused on racism experienced in high school, college, and medical school. ⋯ The students reported a variety of methods of coping with racist experiences and emphasized the importance of fellow minority students, faculty, and the minority office in coping with the stresses of racist experiences. Those offering counseling services to minority students should recognize the reality of racist experiences in medical education.
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The preoperative profiles of a predominately non-white group of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting were reviewed. Data were obtained from a retrospective analysis of medical records of 163 patients operated on at Howard University Hospital between July 1983 and July 1986. The analysis was carried out primarily to determine whether patients requiring myocardial revascularization were somehow different from their non-black counterparts. ⋯ Peri-operative infarctions were profoundly influenced by the presence of diabetes. Although this group was distinguished from most reported groups of patients undergoing aortocoronary bypass grafting by the presence of advanced age, the large percentage of women and diabetics and the marked prevalence of hypertension, and the usual risk factors for coronary artery disease reported in the majority population, the study reconfirms previous epidemiologic findings. It appears that racial "clumping" of a heterogeneous non-white population has minimal usefulness, except as it may be related to socioeconomic status and access to quality health care.