Acknowledging and adjusting racist healthcare practices can help communities of color to have better health outcomes, and it's gaining a lot of traction in the field of medicine, Boston doctors told Adam Reilly on Greater Boston Monday.
"Racism is embedded in our culture, and so what we have to do is push back every single day and teach ourselves and our institutions to be anti-racist," said Dr. Lara Jirmanus, a fellow at Harvard's Center for Health and Human Rights.
Many standard practices in medicine such as the use of a pulse oximeter and calculations to measure kidney function are influenced by race, said Dr. Tia Tucker, a physician at Cambridge Health Alliance.
"We're looking at our healthcare through a lens that means that anyone regardless of their race, their sex, their gender, how much they can afford, is deserving of healthcare," Tucker said.
The doctors said studies have shown that people of color historically have poorer outcomes when admitted to the hospital, and Black patients have better outcomes when they have Black doctors.
"It's trying to figure out how do we actually get our system to remind us to push back against our racist underlying ideas and make sure that we're actually offering the same opportunity for lifesaving healthcare to everybody," said Jirmanus.
Watch: Doctors fight against racism in healthcare
