The History of Medicine Part 2: The Medical Racial Script

Starting in the colonial period and crystalizing during the Republican Period, American doctors differentiated themselves from their European colleagues and from non-traditional healers by instituting a medical-racial script. We'll discuss what the script is, how it helped American healthcare and its white male doctors to establish legitimacy, and the toll it took on the African American community. The script will be woven throughout this course. Nothing more united white male doctors, helped grow the American medical infrastructure and academic foundation, and imprinted on American medicine its enduring stamp than the script. As we study the nidus of the AMA in the mid 1800's, the Progressive rise of orthodox medicine in the early 20th century, and the consolidation of modern orthodoxy, the script emerges as an often covert but powerful catalyst to the health care system we know today.