Dean Ornish M.D.
Newsweek Web Exclusive

Like many of us, I was inspired by Sen. Barack Obama's recent eloquent speech on healing racial and other divisions in this country. His words resonated with my personal experiences. In 1981, for example, when my friend and I moved to Boston to start our medical internships at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Brigham & Women's Hospital, the landlord forced us to find another place to live when he saw that she was African-American.
 
In his speech Senator Obama was careful to point out that access to affordable health care is a human issue, not one reducible to the color of our skin or the color of our states, Red or Blue. As he said, "This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care, who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together."
 
However, a growing body of research during the past few years indicates that one of the most glaring inequalities experienced by African-Americans is the disparity in health care that they receive. This week, for example, the New York Times reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs found that black patients "tend to receive less aggressive medical care than whites" at its hospitals and clinics, in part because doctors provide them with less information and see them as "less appropriate candidates" for some types of surgery. 

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