Dr. Joshua Budhu, MD, MS, and Dr. Méabh O’Hare, MD, joined Boston Public Radio on Monday to discuss their recent piece in The Washington Post, which explores the racist use and history of the idea of "excited delirium." Budhu, O'Hare and their co-author, Dr. Altaf Saadi, write that "excited delirium" is "pseudoscience" that police officers often wrongly use as a justification for using excessive force against Black people.
"I think we have, unfortunately, a very racist history in medicine that we’re coming to terms with," O’Hare said, "and we’re having to look back at a lot of the definitions that were made and a lot of the way things have been described over the years that are definitely racist.”
Joshua Budhu, MD, MS, is a Neuro-Oncology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, and former chief resident for the combined Harvard Neurology residency program at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Méabh O’Hare, MD is neuromuscular fellow at Mass General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s hospital.
Correction: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Dr. Joshua Budhu's first name. It is Joshua, not Jushua.
