Re-Learning the History of Medicine

Below is my monthly message for the March 2021 edition of the MHRI newsletter, Focus. You can view Focus online at MedStarResearch.org/FOCUS.

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In recognition of the crossroads of Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists designated Feb 28-March 1st as days to recognize the sacrifices of Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy, and other enslaved Black women in the name of medical science. Are you not familiar with these women? I wasn't either until Dr. Tamika Auguste, from MedStar Washington Hospital Center Department of OB/GYN, brought this to my attention. And it was eye-opening.

Like most physicians, I did not have formal training in the history of our profession nor how its history contributed to the current health care disparities. Meanwhile, the public health crisis of racial injustice has come front and center in the United States over the last year and is finally shining a light on our understanding of how the medical field is painfully intertwined with slavery and other injustices. We may never know the names of most of the enslaved Black women and men who underwent repeated experimental surgeries. However, the names of Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy remain. As documented by Deirdre Cooper Owens in Medical Bondage, between 1844 and 1849, Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy, and nine other unidentified enslaved women worked in the slave hospital founded by Dr. J. Marion Sims. Dr. Sims repeatedly operated on them without anesthesia to perfect his techniques. Anarcha underwent 30 experimental surgeries in a period of four years without anesthesia.

Last week, MedStar Washington Hospital Center Department of Women and Infants' Services/OBGYN, D.C. Safe Babies Safe Moms, MedStar Research AIDE and the Research Institute hosted a virtual gathering "Betsey, Lucy, and Anarcha: Recognition and Remembrance" to honor and remember the lives of these enslaved women. You can read more about the event here. Nearly 200 people joined us to watch an educational video and then take part in an open discussion.

I am a man of science. I grew up in an era of evidence-based medicine, meaning we practice medicine based on fact and not based on opinions. Those facts and evidence come from scientific experiments and clinical trials to create new knowledge, which subsequently gets incorporated into medical practice. That is the profession I grew up in and we all benefit from in our healthcare system. That is the life I have dedicated my career to. However, what I never had conscious awareness of was that we all benefited from a body of medical research that happened off the backs and bodies of unwilling victims. What is more, these victims of atrocities in the name of science lived here in the United State, perpetrated by US citizens and not by people thousands of miles away in another country.

Learning about Betsey, Lucy, Anarcha and other enslaved victims who shaped so much of what we know in medicine was a reminder about the moral imperatives we have today in healthcare. It is not always what we do, but how we do it. It's caring and how we treat people that make a difference and will put us on the road to truly advancing health for all.

Neil 

Read Focus online at MedStarResearch.org/FOCUS.