“Beliefs that we are chemically different from one another can fuel bigotry. Despite what we know, we still use race as a static, unidirectional proxy for health and disease.”

Dr. Alex Sims recalls the race-based microaggression she experienced at the dentist and describes how it offers “a small window into the danger of race-based medicine.”

This essay was published in the Teaching and Learning Moments column in the December 2020 issue of Academic Medicine. Read the essay at academicmedicine.org.