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RACE, SCIENCE, AND MEDICINE: PAST AND PRESENT

MEDHIST 746
Course Description

Examine ideas about race and ethnicity and their relationship to the history of "Western" medicine and science. Analyze the role of social, economic, cultural, and political developments in the shaping of scientific and medical notions of race and bodily difference. Study how skin color (and other elements of "racial identity") has influenced the experiences of patients and populations, physicians and nurses, and medical researchers. Discuss how conceptions of race have shaped both the health concerns and health outcomes of Americans in the past three hundred years, and the structure of medical institutions in the United States. Topics include the origins of racial classification, race and colonialism, the health and medical care of the enslaved, the use of enslaved people as research subjects, the history of racial disparities in medicine, structural racism of the medical establishment, race and reproduction, and the struggle for justice in health care during the past few decades.

Prerequisties
Satisfies

This course does not satisfy any prerequisites.

Credits

2

Offered

Not Applicable

Grade Point Average
Not Reported

No change from Historical

Completion Rate
100%

No change from Historical

A Rate
Not Reported

No change from Historical

Class Size
23

48.39% from Historical

2025 Fall Grade Distribution

Instructors (2025 Fall)

Sorted by ratings from Rate My Professors

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