RACE, SCIENCE, AND MEDICINE: PAST AND PRESENT
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.
Topics
- 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
Topics explicitly listed in official catalogue description
Prerequisites & course information
Requisites: MED SC-M 810 , 811 , 812 , and 813 Course Designation: Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement Repeatable for Credit: No Last Taught: Fall 2026 Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify and analyze within their social, cultural and economic contexts key historical issues, and their significance, in the history of the idea of race as it relates to scientific and medical developments. Audience: Graduate 2. Develop an understanding of the mutually shaping interactions between ideas about race and perceptions of social hierarchy, health, illness and medical and anthropological categories. Audience: Graduate 3. Understand how conceptions of race have influenced the medical and nursing professions, as well as medical institutions. Audience: Graduate 4. Analyze the role of social factors like gender and class, among others, in shaping cultural realities related to race and body normativity. Audience: Graduate 5. Identify the role that scientists, physicians, patients, healthcare providers, scientific institutions and the state play in modeling, ideas about race. Audience: Graduate 6. Discern the impact of programs of global science as they intersect with international politics in the shaping of ideas about human rights, ethnicity, and race. Audience: Graduate Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify and analyze within their social, cultural and economic contexts key historical issues, and their significance, in the history of the idea of race as it relates to scientific and medical developments. Audience: Graduate 2. Develop an understanding of the mutually shaping interactions between ideas about race and perceptions of social hierarchy, health, illness and medical and anthropological categories. Audience: Graduate 3. Understand how conceptions of race have influenced the medical and nursing professions, as well as medical institutions. Audience: Graduate 4. Analyze the role of social factors like gender and class, among others, in shaping cultural realities related to race and body normativity. Audience: Graduate 5. Identify the role that scientists, physicians, patients, healthcare providers, scientific institutions and the state play in modeling, ideas about race. Audience: Graduate 6. Discern the impact of programs of global science as they intersect with international politics in the shaping of ideas about human rights, ethnicity, and race. Audience: Graduate
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027