過去の差別を反省。

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia
米国医師会は、かつてアフリカ系医師らを排除していた過去に対し、謝罪をおこなった。これからは人種間の健康格差の是正に取り組むことを宣言。

In statement on its Web site, the AMA apologized "for its past history of racial inequality toward African-American physicians, and shares its current efforts to increase the ranks of minority physicians and their participation in the AMA."

The apology is among initiatives at the nation's largest doctors' group to reduce racial disparities in medicine and to recruit more blacks to become doctors and to join the AMA.

AMA data suggest fewer than 2 percent of its members are black, and that fewer than 3 percent of America's 1 million medical students and physicians are black.

While that is based on a survey in which the race of more than one-third of doctors was unknown, several black physicians said the percentages ring true.

It is not the first time the AMA has apologized for its discriminatory history. In 2005, Dr. John Nelson, then AMA's president, offered a similar apology at a meeting on improving health care and eliminating disparities.

That came a year after the AMA joined the National Medical Association, a black doctors' group, and other minority doctors' groups in forming the Commission to End Health Care Disparities.

米国医師会はそのサイトで「アフリカ系アメリカ人医師らに対する過去の人種差別を謝罪し、少数派の医師らの地位向上と医師会への参画を促す努力を分かち合う」と宣言した。医師会のデータによると、会員の2%未満が黒人で、米国の約100万人いる医師・医学生のうち3%未満が黒人である。米国医師会が過去の差別についての謝罪をおこなうのは初めてではない。2005年には保健サービスの向上と格差の是正についての謝罪をおこなった。黒人医師らからなる団体と共同で「保健サービス格差排除委員会」を立ち上げて1年になるのを受けての謝罪である。

なんかさ、すごいかっこいいよね。これからはアフリカ系学生が医師を目指すのをもっと支援するんだって。