Advertisement

Harvard Medical Students Protest Ferguson, NYC Cases

Some 100 Harvard Medical School on Wednesday protested deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police as well as racial inequality in medical treatment. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Some 100 Harvard Medical School on Wednesday protested deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police as well as racial inequality in medical treatment. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Harvard Medical School students joined students from some 40 other medical schools across the country Wednesday in protesting the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police and racial inequality in medical treatment.

The protests followed two grand jury decisions to not indict white police officers in the separate deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City.

The protesters, who participated in a 15-minute "die-in" in the lobby of a building on Harvard's Longwood campus in Boston, said minority patients have worse access to medical care than white patients and those who do have access may be treated differently.

"Who you are in terms of are you white, are you black, are you Hispanic really oftentimes determines the quality of care that you receive and your health outcomes," said first-year med student Rumbi Mushavi. "As medical students who will become future physicians and who will later on inherit health care systems with great injustice, we’re trying to say we need to fight this.”

Some 100 students and faculty participated in the protest. Similar protests have been staged around Boston and the nation since the grand jury decisions.

(Jesse Costa/WBUR)
(Jesse Costa/WBUR)
(Jesse Costa/WBUR)
(Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Related:

Advertisement

More from WBUR

Listen Live
Close