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How Physicians Hundreds Of Years Ago Medicalized Race — And How That Legacy Lives On Today

Pain treatment is different for white and black patients in the United States. One shows black patients were 40% less likely to get medication to ease acute pain than white patients in the emergency room. Why does this happen?

A of University of Virginia medical students suggests that the reason is — at least in part — racial bias. Researchers discovered a high number of white medical students and residents with inaccurate ideas about the biological differences between black and white people. These false beliefs are rooted in centuries-old ideas from physicians about biological differences in race.

Host Frank Stasio learns about where these ideas took root from , the author of “.” She is also an assistant professor in the department of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hogarth will be at the Wilson Special Collections Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 5 p.m. to talk about her work and to open a new exhibition at the Wilson Library called “.” Stasio also  talks to about that exhibition and what materials will be on display. Lucas is the technical services archivist for UNC-Chapel Hill. The exhibition will be up from Thursday, Feb. 13 to Sunday, April 19.
 

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Amanda Magnus is the executive producer of Embodied, a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships and health. She has also worked on other վ shows including Tested and CREEP.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.