We're still actively developing this site. If you encounter any issues, please report them! - Report an issue

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

Instructors (2025 Fall)

Sorted by ratings from Rate My Professors

Similar Courses

RACE, AMERICAN MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

AFROAMER/HISTSCI/MEDHIST 523

Provides historical perspectives on current dilemmas facing black patients and health care professionals.

BODIES, DISEASES, AND HEALERS: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

HISTSCI/MEDHIST 212

A survey of different conceptions of how the body as a site of sickness has been understood from Antiquity to contemporary medicine. Includes consideration of the origins and evolution of public health, the changing social role of healers, and the emergence of the modern "standardized" body in health and illness.

RACE, GENDER, HEALTH, AND MEDICINE

GEN&WS 524

Uses race and gender theoretical frameworks to understand peoples' experiences with health and medicine. Conceptualizes race and gender as social categories and applies these frameworks to how people experience health, wellness, and disease. Examines how healthcare and medicine are structured according to racialized and gendered frameworks. Surveys a wide range of issues including reproductive health, body size, mental health, COVID, among other topics. Uses an intersectional approach to analyzing key debates in scholarship on health and medicine.

SCIENCE, MEDICINE, AND RACE: A HISTORY

AFROAMER/HISTSCI 275

Surveys the medical and scientific constructions of categories of race, placing the development of racial theories in a broad social and political context. Pays particular attention to the importance of racial science in slavery and colonialism.

RACE IN AMERICAN OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY

OBS&GYN 917

Survey the history of race in American obstetrics and gynecology. Gain understanding of how race and theories of racial difference informed the development of the field and justified the treatment of Black, indigenous and immigrant patients. Understand the vital contributions of Black enslaved women, other women of color, and Irish immigrants to obstetrics and gynecology. Make connections between racialized historical practices and contemporary norms in reproductive healthcare.