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Reflections On Race And Medicine

Image of Damon Tweedy, who is a professor psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke.
Stock Photography

When Damon Tweedy was in his first year of medical school, he learned a number of startling statistics that led him to the conclusion that being black is somehow bad for your health.

He heard over and over how black patients were faring worse than other patients in almost every field of medicine, but nobody seemed to be talking about the reasons for this disparity.

As his career evolved, Tweedy also began to notice the ways in which his own race impacted both his relationships with patients and his own healthcare experience.

His upcoming memoir “A Black Man In A White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine” (Picador/2015) documents his experiences grappling with racial identity and the unique health problems of black Americans. 

Host Frank Stasio talks to Damon Tweedy, professor of psychiatry at Duke University and staff physician at Durham VA Medical Center.

Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.