Black Neurologists Face Discrimination, Recognize Need to Minimize Disparities

The majority of Black neurologists in the United States report experiencing discrimination over the course of their clinical training and in their professional lives and believe that more Black neurologists are needed to address health care disparities, according to study results presented at the 2024 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting, held from April 13 to 18, 2024, in Denver, Colorado.

Many neurological conditions are more common among Black Americans; however, only 3% of neurologists practicing in the US identify as Black. It is not known how Black neurologists perceive disparities within the field, nor is it understood how inequalities may affect their practice.

Researchers at Quinnipiac University and the Medical University of South Carolina disseminated a 22-question survey via email to members of the American Society of Black Neurologists (SBN) to assess how Black neurologists in the US perceive the nationwide need for more Black neurologists, issues of racial inequity, and the need to narrow disparity gaps in health care.

Of the 26 respondents (women, 57%; practicing for 10 years or fewer, 65%), 25 (96%) concurred that increasing the number of Black neurologists would help minimize health care disparities in neurology. Twenty-five (96%) respondents also agreed that increasing the number of Black neurologists in academia would help spark interest among Black medical students to pursue careers in neurology, and 13 (70%) joined the neurological workforce themselves in the hopes of recruiting more medical students into neurology. Further, 5 (25%) respondents joined the neurological workforce because they perceived being an outsider at their workplace.

Due to their race, 23 (88%) respondents felt they had fewer chances to make mistakes relative to their White colleagues. Twenty-five (96%) Neurologists believed that they were treated differently during their journey in medicine due to their race and 6 (23%) were worried about speaking up after witnessing mistreatment of a Black patient.

“In this study, most [B]lack neurologists identified a need for more [B]lack neurologists to minimize healthcare disparities and admitted being discriminated during their clinical training and professional life because of their ethnicity,” the researchers concluded.