Physician activists call for eliminating race-based reporting in certain medical practices

Physicians from San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco, are calling for their institutions to eliminate race-based reporting of kidney function and to commit to dismantling other aspects of racism found in medicine. In October 2019, SFGH eliminated race-based reporting of kidney function — which skews data to suggest that Black patients have better kidney function, therefore delaying further treatment such as transplants. But the petitioners now say that SFGH is considering reverting that decision, even as other institutions, including the University of Washington, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, have recently removed race-based reporting of kidney function from their practices. The practice is imprecise and promotes disparities, the petitioners say, and failure to remove it "would be affirming that embracing poor science and racial injustice is the best path forward."