by Michael O. Memsah, M.D.

I was in medical school when I learned that I did not matter in medicine.

One particular day on service started uneventfully. However, after the team’s discussion of a patient, all attention turned toward me when a senior physician asked me a question about the rap music that had been playing in the background.

“Help me understand something:” I recall the physician saying. The physician asked about word choice in rap lyrics, and then, pretending to quote a rap song, repeated the word “nigger” several times in rapid-fire succession.

So begins this important “Viewpoint” article in JAMA Internal Medicine.  Most of us will benefit from reading it.  Mensah VJCD