Racism in medicine: planning for the future

African Americans and other minority populations have not benefited to the same degree as the majority of Americans from the advances in health care in our country. The vestiges of racism have resulted in inequities which exist in training, medical practice, medical decision making, the work environment and biomedical research. Recommendations are made to eliminate racial and ethnic bias in healthcare through monitoring and increasing the number and the distribution of medical trainees proportionate to the diversity of the U.S. population; through improvements in the medical school curriculum to include the impact of race and ethnicity on healthcare outcomes as well as the effect of physicians' attitudes on health; through the inclusion of an adequate number, mix and distribution of health care professionals relative to the diversity of the participants in health plans with due process for patients and physicians; and through increased participation in peer review research funding, training and as subjects in biomedical research directed to improve the quality of healthcare for diverse populations.