Summary
Summary
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S TOP TEN NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEARA LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK SELECTION * A BOOKLIST EDITORS' CHOICE BOOK SELECTIONOne 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 in 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 many health problems in the black community. These issues take ongreater 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.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this eye-opening memoir, Tweedy, a black psychiatrist who interned at Duke University Medical School in the mid-1990s, vigorously confronts his profession and its erratic treatment of African-American patients. Tweedy, raised in a segregated working-class neighborhood, gets a full scholarship to the white academic world of Duke, where he's challenged on every level, including by a professor who wrongly assumes he's a janitor. Though Duke, like many elite colleges, tried to recruit minority students, Tweedy notes that the constant subliminal and overt racism at the school-which former professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. termed "the Plantation"-caused many non-white recruits to suffer self-doubt and anxiety. His painful anecdotes, both as an intern and physician, show the critical health crisis within the black community; his patients included a drug-addicted girl pregnant with a dead infant, an older woman suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, a man struggling with mental illness, and a young woman who contracted AIDS from her boyfriend. Tweedy nicely unravels the essential issues of race, prejudice, class, mortality, treatment, and American medicine without blinking or polite excuses. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Tweedy, an African American psychiatrist at Duke University, expertly weaves together statistics, personal anecdotes, and patient stories to explain why being black can be bad for your health. The son of a grocery-store meat cutter, Tweedy grew up in a working-class neighborhood and attended Duke on a full scholarship, where he faced prejudice from some white patients and medical-school professors (one doesn't realize he is a student and asks him to fix the lights in the lecture hall). But he also runs across less-than-welcoming African Americans, including one patient who says, Go tell your boss I don't want no black doctor. . . . I could have stayed home if I wanted to see a country ass doctor. Tweedy organizes his story into three themes. Under disparities, he says that blacks represent 13 percent of the U.S. population but only 7 percent of medical students and that black men are 7 percent more likely than white ones to get a diagnosis of HIV. In barriers, he notes that some doctors assume black patients are poorly educated, drug abusing, and less likely to comply with treatments. And in perseverance, he calls for improving access to quality medical care and getting African Americans to address unhealthy behaviors that contribute to their higher rates of obesity and hypertension. In all, a smart, thought-provoking, frontline look at race and medicine.--Springen, Karen Copyright 2015 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In this memoir, physician Tweedy (psychiatry, Duke Univ. Medical Sch.) shares his life at different stages in the medical profession, discusses how race affects his experiences, and explains the health challenges affecting black communities. Tweedy comes across as a caring individual and represents the health professions in a positive light. His comments will make listeners think about how they can work to improve the situations of all. Read ably by Corey Allen, the work is written in short episodes ideal for listening on the go. Verdict Highly recommended for all interested in health disparities, health education, and minority issues in medicine. ["A must-read for anyone interested in improving medical care, from training to delivery in a world where race persists as a factor in life and death": LJ 7/15 review of the Picador hc.]-Eric Albright, Tufts Univ. Health Sciences Lib., Boston © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.