Even credentialed Black physicians face discrimination within American healthcare

Evidence

In 2002, when Susan Moore received her degree from the University of Michigan Medical School, she joined a small sorority of Black women with the MD credential after their names. That year, fewer than seven hundred Black women graduated from American medical schools—out of a total of nearly sixteen thousand newly minted doctors. … But in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, years of medical training and the credentials she’d worked so hard to earn would fail to protect her from the healthcare system itself. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 954

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s broader reframing thesis that racial hierarchy is foundational and persists even among elite Black professionals — echoes the education and housing chapters on credentials failing to buy equality.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the % of Black female MDs (~4%) vs. the trajectory since 2002 — is the deficit narrative improving or static?