Biomaterial Database

Race and medical practice in Kansas City's Free Dispensary. 2008

Christopher Crenner

Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine, University of Kansas School of Medicine, USA. ccrenner@kumc.edu

Patient records from the Kansas City Free Dispensary, 1906-1912, provide material for a case study of race in early twentieth-century medicine. The dispensary was a free, racially integrated medical clinic operated for educational purposes by the University of Kansas. Little historical work has been done examining the role of race in routine medical practice. Medical records give insight to the development of durable clinical habits and rules of thumb. Practitioners at the Kansas City Free Dispensary showed clear racial inequities in their care, for example in the treatment of pain, but they did not acknowledge or explain their practices, although the necessary rhetoric and justifications lay close at hand. The author speculates that the disavowal of scientific racism in medicine in decades to follow may have done little to dislodge habits that became embedded in informal clinical judgments.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D007585	Jews	An ethnic group with historical ties to the land of ISRAEL and the religion of JUDAISM.	Jew
D007615	Kansas	State bounded on the north by Nebraska on the east by Missouri, on the south by Oklahoma, and on the west by Colorado.
D008923	Missouri	State bounded on the east by Illinois and Kentucky, on the south by Arkansas, on the west by Kansas, and on the north by Iowa.
D011287	Prejudice	A preconceived judgment made without factual basis.	Anti-Semitism,Islamophobia,Anti Semitism,Anti-Semitisms,Islamophobias,Prejudices
D001741	Black or African American	A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/1997/10/30/97-28653/revisions-to-the-standards-for-the classification-of-federal-data-on-race-and-ethnicity). In the United States it is used for classification of federal government data on race and ethnicity. Race and ethnicity terms are self-identified social construct and may include terms outdated and offensive in MeSH to assist users who are interested in retrieving comprehensive search results for studies such as in longitudinal studies.	African American,African Americans,African-American,Afro-American,Afro-Americans,Black Americans,Blacks,Negroes,African-Americans,Negro,Afro American,Afro Americans,American, African,American, Black,Black American
D003695	Delivery of Health Care	The concept concerned with all aspects of providing and distributing health services to a patient population.	Delivery of Dental Care,Health Care,Health Care Delivery,Health Care Systems,Community-Based Distribution,Contraceptive Distribution,Delivery of Healthcare,Dental Care Delivery,Distribution, Non-Clinical,Distribution, Nonclinical,Distributional Activities,Healthcare,Healthcare Delivery,Healthcare Systems,Non-Clinical Distribution,Nonclinical Distribution,Activities, Distributional,Activity, Distributional,Care, Health,Community Based Distribution,Community-Based Distributions,Contraceptive Distributions,Deliveries, Healthcare,Delivery, Dental Care,Delivery, Health Care,Delivery, Healthcare,Distribution, Community-Based,Distribution, Contraceptive,Distribution, Non Clinical,Distributional Activity,Distributions, Community-Based,Distributions, Contraceptive,Distributions, Non-Clinical,Distributions, Nonclinical,Health Care System,Healthcare Deliveries,Healthcare System,Non Clinical Distribution,Non-Clinical Distributions,Nonclinical Distributions,System, Health Care,System, Healthcare,Systems, Health Care,Systems, Healthcare
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D014481	United States	A country in NORTH AMERICA between CANADA and MEXICO.
D044469	Racial Groups	Groups of individuals with similar physical appearances often reinforced by cultural, social and/or linguistic similarities.	Continental Population Groups,Race,Racial Stocks,Continental Population Group,Group, Continental Population,Group, Racial,Groups, Continental Population,Groups, Racial,Population Group, Continental,Population Groups, Continental,Races,Racial Group,Racial Stock,Stock, Racial,Stocks, Racial
D049673	History, 20th Century	Time period from 1901 through 2000 of the common era.	20th Century History,20th Cent. History (Medicine),20th Cent. History of Medicine,20th Cent. Medicine,Historical Events, 20th Century,History of Medicine, 20th Cent.,History, Twentieth Century,Medical History, 20th Cent.,Medicine, 20th Cent.,20th Cent. Histories (Medicine),20th Century Histories,Cent. Histories, 20th (Medicine),Cent. History, 20th (Medicine),Century Histories, 20th,Century Histories, Twentieth,Century History, 20th,Century History, Twentieth,Histories, 20th Cent. (Medicine),Histories, 20th Century,Histories, Twentieth Century,History, 20th Cent. (Medicine),Twentieth Century Histories,Twentieth Century History