Sally Satel

In the following viewpoint, Sally Satel asserts that the American medical system does not discriminate against minorities. She contends that claims of bias ignore the actual reasons for any disparities in health care, such as some minority groups’ unwillingness to undergo surgery or the frequency with which different minority groups develop certain diseases. Moreover, according to Satel, the underlying health of a patient and the procedures offered at the hospital at which he or she is treated also help determine patient options. Satel is a lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine and the author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine, from which the following viewpoint has been excerpted.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. How were black patients and medical students treated in the 1960s, according...