Study: White Patients Get Better Medical Care

Cnn.com reports that the medical field is still plagued by severe racial disparity. In a recent study, researchers looked at the Medicare records of 1.2 million US heart attack patients. These patients were a minimum of 68 years old. The examination of the records showed that of the 85,0000 heart attack patients that were black, 30 percent of them were less likely to be given angioplasty. Angioplasty is considered a high tech treatment. During such a procedure, a very tiny balloon is threaded into arteries that are blocked. Then, small supports known as stints are used to hold the arteries open.

This type of racial disparity in medical care has been a detriment to the black community. Cnn.com also reports that following the first month to a year after a heart attack, blacks were 26 percent more likely to die than white people were.

The study was published in the June 13^th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and the study's leader was Ioana Popescu. Popescu is an internal medicine specialist from the University of Iowa Hospitals. Pospescu was quoted on desmoinesregister.com. She stated, " I don't think this proves that doctors are racists." She believes that patients preferences might have affected their medical care, and perhaps white patients were given angioplasty when they did not need it.

Cnn.com reports that the study also found that blacks were 22% less likely than white patients to be moved from a hospital that did not perform angioplasty or other advanced heart procedures to a hospital that did perform such procedures. Even when the black patients were transferred, they ended up having a 23% less of a chance of getting the advanced operations performed on them than whites did.

Previously, other studies done on the subject of medical care amongst blacks and whites have shown that there were differences in treatment. Desmoinesregister.com notes that the differences cannot be due to insurance status because all of the patients were under the Medicare insurer.

Many doctors who were asked about the study believe that racism may be a small factor in the study's results. Some doctors believe that there may be other socio-economic factors that may be a larger cause for the healthcare disparities. For example, often, advanced medical procedures are not done on patients who arrive many days after they have had a heart attack or if they are in a weakened physical state. Also, black patients often arrive at the hospital with a distrust of the medical system, which might lead them to refuse more complex treatments. In any case, everyone agrees that the findings are something to think about.

Study: Race Disparity in Medical Care Persists, CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/06/12/heart.blacks.reut/index.html