AAOS Now, June 2020
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Celebrating Diversity Encourages Future Orthopaedic Surgeons
Editor’s note: The following letter is in response to a series of articles focused on the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [or questioning]) community that were recently published in AAOS Now.
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A Message from Eric Ward Carson, MD, President of JRGOS
This latest chapter in the long history of injustice against black and brown bodies in America comes at a harrowing time as we battle a novel COVID-19 pandemic, which is also devastating our community. As communities of color across the nation wrestle with yet another affront to the elusive promise of equality, it is imperative that our own JRGOS community remain a source of fellowship, healing, and understanding, and a voice of leadership. Now more than ever before, we are called upon to use the privileges afforded us as orthopaedic surgeons as a vehicle for change.
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A Public Health Crisis: Racism and Racial Disparities
The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent death of George Floyd have both brought to light continued racial disparities in the United States. Racism has led to the unnecessary and heinous deaths of many African Americans, including most recently George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Disproportionate COVID-19 deaths of African Americans are due, in part, to longstanding health inequities. We have witnessed with despair what is happening in Minneapolis and cities across the United States. Racism and racial disparities are public health crises.
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'We Stand with You’
Anyone who has seen the graphic video of George Floyd being pinned down and suffocated by a Minneapolis police officer cannot help but be horrified. There is no justification for this violence. The Academy respects the lives of every person regardless of race, religion, gender, creed, or sexual orientation, and we strongly condemn what has recently occurred.