Research Catalog

Title

Black man in a white coat : a doctor's reflections on race and medicine / Damon Tweedy, M.D.

Author

Tweedy, Damon.

Publication

New York : Picador, 2015.

Supplementary Content

Cover image

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

294 pages; 25 cm

Summary

• "One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black AmericansWhen Damon Tweedy begins medical school,he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working-class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. The recipient of a scholarship designed to increase black student enrollment, Tweedy soon meets a professor who bluntly questions whether he belongs in medical school, a moment that crystallizes the challenges he will face throughout his career. Making matters worse, in lecture after lecture the common refrain for numerous diseases resounds, "More common in blacks than whites." Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of most health problems in the black community. These issues take on greater meaning when Tweedy is himself diagnosed with a chronic disease far more common among black people. In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care"--
• "When Damon Tweedy first enters the halls of Duke University Medical School on a full scholarship, he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. When one of his first professors mistakes him for a maintenance worker, it is a moment that crystallizes the challenges he will face throughout his early career. Making matters worse, in lecture after lecture the common refrain for numerous diseases resounds, "More common in blacks than whites." In riveting, honest prose, Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of most health problems in the black community. These elements take on greater meaning when Tweedy finds himself diagnosed with a chronic disease far more common among black people. In this powerful, moving, and compassionate book, Tweedy deftly explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care.- For readers of Atul Gawande, Sandeep Jauhar, Pauline W. Chen, and Henrietta Lacks"--

Subjects

• African Americans > Health and hygiene
• African American physicians > North Carolina > Biography
• African Americans > Medical care
• Tweedy, Damon
• Black author
• African American psychiatrists > North Carolina > Biography
• Discrimination in medical care > North Carolina
• Autobiographies

Genre/Form

Autobiographies.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bilbiographical references (pages 289-291).

Contents

• Disparities -- Barriers -- Perseverance.
• Introduction -- Disparities. People like us ; Baby mamas ; Charity care ; Inner-city blues -- Barriers. Confronting hate ; When doctors discriminate ; The color of HIV/AIDS -- Perseverance. Matching ; Doing the right thing ; Beyond race.

Call Number

Sc E 15-1701

ISBN

• 9781250044631 (hardback)
• 1250044634 (hardback)
• 9781250044648 (e-book) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2015018599

OCLC

886486049

Author

Tweedy, Damon.

Title

Black man in a white coat : a doctor's reflections on race and medicine / Damon Tweedy, M.D.

Publisher

New York : Picador, 2015.

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Local Note

Schomburg copy with dust jacket.

Bibliography

Includes bilbiographical references (pages 289-291).

Connect to:

Cover image

Local Subject

Black author.

Research Call Number

Sc E 15-1701