Racial/ethnic disparities in medical care

doi:10.1136/bmjusa.03060002

BMJ, doi: 10.1136/bmjusa.03060002, (Published 3 July 2003)

Editorial

Racial/ethnic disparities in medical care

Engaging physicians in the dialogue

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

From BMJ USA 2003;June:300

Last year, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the reportUnequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparitiesin Health Care, which concluded, based on an extensive reviewof the literature, that racial and ethnic disparities in patient care occur among similarly insured groups.¹ One study of Medicarebeneficiaries, for example, found that black patients with earlystage lung cancer were nearly half as likely as whites to undergo surgery and had lower five-year survival rates.² Another studyfound that Latino patients who had undergone diagnostic angiographywere 40% less likely than whites to undergo coronary bypasssurgery.³ A study that identified patients considered appropriatecandidates for renal transplantation found that the procedureoccurred among 17% of black patients and 52% of white patients.⁴While the evidence varies for specific conditions and racial/ethnicminority groups, the data sufficiently compel us to begin undertakingactions to systematically . . . [Full text of this article]