The danger is in further assuming that race is biologically significant or that the disparity is caused by race-based biological differences. Even with a socially constructed conception of race, it is dangerous to assume the patient's race is a "good enough" explanation.
This fact struck me during my lecture on the utility of race in medicine and genetics. I was sharing Dorothy Roberts' warning against medical stereotyping and race-based diagnoses and wondered if I, too, had been a victim.
FCOD is most commonly found in middle-aged African-American women, and although the cause of FCOD is unknown, it is likely a result of a hormone imbalance.
I was relieved that the lesion was not cancerous, but my FCOD diagnosis still felt like a symptom of a silent, malignant condition: the weathering of a Black woman in philosophy, a Black woman in academia.
#health-disparities #race-in-medicine #focal-cemento-osseous-dysplasia #black-women-in-academia #medical-stereotyping
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