kb/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report-3.md

title	chunk	source	category	tags	date_saved	instance
Flexner Report	4/4	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report	reference	science, encyclopedia	2026-05-05T08:47:54.714737+00:00	kb-cron

"The practice of the Negro doctor will be limited to his own race, which in its turn will be cared for better by good Negro physicians than by poor white ones. But the physical well-being of the Negro is not only of moment to the Negro himself. Ten million of them live in close contact with sixty million whites. Not only does the Negro himself suffer from hookworm and tuberculosis; he communicates them to his white neighbors, precisely as the ignorant and unfortunate white contaminates him. Self-protection not less than humanity offers weighty counsel in this matter; self- interest seconds philanthropy. The Negro must be educated not only for his sake, but for ours. He is, as far as the human eye can see, a permanent factor in the nation." Flexner's findings also restricted opportunities for African-American physicians in the medical sphere. Even the Howard and Meharry schools struggled to stay open following the Flexner Report, having to meet the institutional requirements of white medical schools, reflecting a divide in access to health care between white and African-Americans. Following the Flexner Report, African-American students sued universities, challenging the precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson. However, those students were met by opposition from schools that remained committed to segregated medical education. It was not until 15 years after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that the AAMC ensured access to medical education for African-Americans and minorities by supporting the diversification of medical schools. The closure of the five schools, and the fact that black students were not admitted to many U.S. medical schools for the 50 years following the Flexner Report, has contributed to the low numbers of American-born physicians of color as the ramifications are still felt, more than a century later. Tens of thousands of African American physicians disappeared as a result of the Flexner Report. In relation to the national Census, physicians belonging to minority groups, including African Americans, remain underrepresented in medicine. In response to the racist writings of the Flexner Report, the AAMC decided to rename the prestigious Abraham Flexner award in 2020. David Acosta, M.D., the chief diversity and inclusion officer of AAMC, stated, "We must not ignore medicine's racist history and make every effort toward reparation when this history is identified." However, the view that Flexner and the Report were detrimental to black medical schools is resisted by Thomas N. Bonner, who contended that Flexner worked to save the two black medical schools that were graduating most of the black physicians at that time.

=== Impact on women === The Flexner Report has also been criticized for introducing policies that encouraged sexism, resulting in "the near elimination of women in the physician workforce between 1910 and 1970." Before the publication of the Flexner Report, in the mid-to-latter part of the nineteenth century, universities had just begun opening and expanding female admissions as part of both women's and co-educational facilities with the founding of co-educational Oberlin College in 1833 and private all-women's colleges such as Vassar College and Pembroke College. Furthermore, many women opened their own medical schools for women as a response to other medical schools refusing to admit them. In the Report, Flexner noted that there were few women in medical education. Flexner believed that the small numbers of female medical students and female physicians was not due to a lack of opportunity because, as he saw it, there were ample opportunities for women to be educated in medicine. Thus, he believed that the low numbers were due to a decreased desire and tendency to enter medical school.

“Now that women are freely admitted to the medical profession, it is clear that they show a decreasing inclination to enter it. More schools in all sections are open to them; fewer attend and fewer graduate.” Flexner also emphasized women's particular role in medicine throughout the Report, stating that "[w]oman has so apparent a function in certain medical specialties". While some people thought that women were the intellectual equals of men and could be proficient in any field, the majority assumed that women were naturally nurturing and loving, and if they were going to pursue a medical career, they should do so in child health, occupational health, or maternal health. Today, it is speculated that the Report may have been a factor in encouraging female physicians to specialize in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology rather than other disciplines.

=== Impact on alternative medicine === When Flexner researched his report, "modern" medicine faced vigorous competition from several quarters, including osteopathic medicine, chiropractic medicine, electrotherapy, eclectic medicine, naturopathy, and homeopathy. Flexner clearly doubted the scientific validity of all forms of medicine other than that based on scientific research, deeming any approach to medicine that did not advocate the use of treatments such as vaccines to prevent and cure illness as tantamount to quackery and charlatanism. Medical schools that offered training in various disciplines including electromagnetic field therapy, phototherapy, eclectic medicine, physiomedicalism, naturopathy, and homeopathy, were told either to drop these courses from their curriculum or lose their accreditation and underwriting support. A few schools resisted for a time, but eventually most schools for alternative medicine complied with the Report or shut their doors.

=== Impact on osteopathic medicine === While almost all the alternative medical schools listed in the Flexner Report were closed, the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) brought a number of osteopathic medical schools into compliance with Flexner's recommendations to produce an evidence-based approach and practice. Today, the curricula of DO- and MD-awarding medical schools are now nearly identical, the chief difference being the additional instruction in osteopathic schools of osteopathic manipulative medicine.

== See also == Committee of Ten African American student access to medical schools

== References ==

== Further reading == Beck, Andrew H. (May 5, 2004). "The Flexner report and the standardization of American medical education" (PDF). The Journal of the American Medical Association. 291 (17): 2139–40. doi:10.1001/jama.291.17.2139. PMID 15126445. Retrieved November 24, 2012. Bonner, Thomas Neville, 2002. Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. ISBN 0-8018-7124-7. Flexner, Abraham; Pritchett, Henry (1910). "The Flexner Report" (PDF).(PDF) from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Gevitz, Norman, and Grant, U. S., 2004. The D.O.s (2nd ed.). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-7834-9. Starr, Paul, 1982. The Social Transformation of American Medicine. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-07935-0. Wheatley, S. C., 1989. The Politics of Philanthropy: Abraham Flexner and Medical Education. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-11750-2, ISBN 0-299-11754-5.

== External links == "Flexner Report Transformed Med Schools", All Things Considered, August 16, 2008. The Flexner Report ― 100 Years Later (September 2011) The Flexner Report public domain audiobook at LibriVox