The Time Is Now: Racism and the Responsibility of Emergency Medicine to Be Antiracist

BACKGROUND

Emergency medicine was born as a specialty from the efforts of pioneering physicians who saw the need for quality emergency care. This emergency care would be available to all patients at all times, day or night.1 As a specialty whose primary purpose is to address emergency care, emergency medicine must address the acute and chronic emergency of racism. It is imperative to understand that race is a social construct and not a biological determinant. Racism is a system of structured opportunity and assignment of value that intentionally disadvantages individuals based on the color of their skin.2-4 The trauma of blatant direct individual racist actions and racism on individuals and our community cannot be understated. The responsibility to be antiracist is to advocate for racial equality and actively identify and change policies, practices, and organizational structures that support racism.5 National emergency medicine organizations publicly issuing a statement of “Racism is a Public Health Crisis” is a first step.6-8 In taking the next step, emergency clinicians and organizations can be informed by the social- ecological model for the prevention of violence, a public health tool. This public health tool considers the intersection of causes of violence at multiple levels and how factors at one level influence factors at another level. We propose that emergency clinicians and organizations apply this tool to consider the intersection of causes of the trauma of racism and implement antiracist actions for emergency clinicians to follow at the individual, organizational, community, and policy levels.9