Items related to systems of health care that I learned and thought about this week:
National Medical Association. I am embarrassed to confess that, nearly 20 years after graduating from medical school, I learned only this week about the National Medical Association. This came about while I was learning some of the history of the American Medical Association (AMA). In short, the National Medical Association was created because the AMA would not admit Black physicians into the organization. (I have never been a member of the AMA. My reasons have been squishy; I never truly believed that the AMA represented me or my interests. That hasn’t stopped the AMA from sending me invitations in the mail to join! It seems that over 80% of physicians are not AMA members, so I’m certainly not alone.)
Alexander Graham Bell and Eugenics. This Journal of the American Medical Association (emphasis mine) editorial from 1908 reports:
The subject of the production of better men and women was brought before the American Breeders’ Association by Professor Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who for many years has been interested in certain social questions, especially those relating to the condition of the deaf and the result on the next generation of the consanguinity of parents as regards the production of deaf and blind children.
No one ever brought this up when we learned that he invented the telephone.
It appears that Bell’s interest in “breeding” was his observation, though the collection of some statistics, that parents who are related to each other seem more likely to bear children who are deaf. Bell made “an appeal for the collection of statistics by trained men who are interested and who have the opportunity to secure the definite detailed information” related to “the production of better children”. The unnamed author(s) of the editorial go on:
We are securing survivals to a much greater degree than before, and now it becomes a duty to secure, so far as it is possible, the origin of members of the race who will be worthy of survival. After all, the most important problem in evolution is not so much the survival of the fittest as the origin of the fittest.
Over 100 years have passed and this ugly question of “breeding” persists.
The Chinese Exclusion Act. I’ve commented on this Act before (here and here), but here’s an opportunity to pile on the AMA even more. In 1901, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a “minor comment” about “The Exclusion of the Chinese“, which you can view in its entirety in the link above.
Reading this made me think of vile rhetoric that has revived during this Covid-19 pandemic. Recall recent references to “disregard of sanitation” due to “[maintainence] to the fullest extent their oriental habits and traditions”. The Chinese, they just won’t do as we do.
“That this is a Christian country and we regard them as heathen, should not make us altruistic to our harm.”
Do we hear echoes from 1901 in the US’s current Covid test requirement for travelers from China?
Prescriptive Authority for Psychologists. There is a House bill in the Washington State Legislature that will give prescriptive authority to psychologists. Five US states currently allow psychologists to prescribe medications.
While it is easy to stumble into a debate about whether this should happen or not, I think this is a distraction. This debate is a manifestation of failure in public health policy.
Instead of trying to increase the number of people who can perform a highly specialized task, why not increase the availability of community supports and services so people don’t need highly specialized treatment?
Consider the decrease in anxiety and depression that would result if people were confident they could pay their rent? feed their families? take time off to care for their newborn? secure an education or training–whether college or vocational school–that supports stable employment?
Think of the decrease in stress and trauma if people had better options than to sell drugs or sex? if neighborhoods had more green spaces and less air and noise pollution? if they had adequate and essential protections as “essential” workers?
Medical Mistrust and Meeting People Where They Are At. This paper about medical mistrust, racism, and health prevention describes an elegant way to recruit study participants: “collection of data [occurred] primarily in barbershops, venues with documented recent success in reducing blood pressure in African-American men”. It is elegant because it is simple, effective, and successful.
When I read this, I recalled a suggestion my father had around the time the Covid-19 vaccines were released. He lives near several Asian grocers, many of which are more like bodegas than grocery stores.
“Why don’t they set up vaccination stations outside these grocery stores? Everyone needs to eat. Elderly people go to these stores all the time. Laborers get snacks and cigarettes. Make it easy for people.”
Sometimes (often?) the best and most effective health care happens outside of medical spaces.
Maria Yang, MD 