01/08/2026
Racism in healthcare isn’t opinion. It’s measurable, and it shows up in the research.
Start with pain. A 2016 study found about half of white medical trainees held at least one false belief about biological differences between Black and white patients. Those who did rated Black patients’ pain as lower and treated it less accurately. Those beliefs trace straight back to justifications used by doctors in the 1800s.
But it isn’t only about individual clinicians. A widely used hospital algorithm quietly underestimated the risk of Black patients who were just as sick, because it used past spending as a stand-in for need. No conscious bias required for real harm to happen.
The gap shows up in treatment too. Black patients with early-onset colorectal cancer waited longer for care than white patients with the same diagnosis.
For those of us in manual therapy and pain rehab, this matters. If a patient’s pain is being disbelieved before they reach us, it shapes everything that follows.
None of this is about blame. It’s about naming the problem honestly, and looking at where it lives in our own assessments and notes. That’s the first real step.