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The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care
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The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care
Unavailable
The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care
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The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care

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The Medical Committee for Human Rights was organized in the summer of 1964 by medical professionals, mostly white and Northern, to provide care and support for Civil Rights activists who were organizing black voters in Mississippi. They left their lives and lucrative private practices to march beside and tend the wounds of demonstrators from Freedom Summer, to the March on Selma, to the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. Galvanized, and sometimes radicalized, by their firsthand view of disenfranchised communities, the MCHR soon expanded its mission to encompass a range of causes from poverty to the war in Vietnam, and later took on the whole of the United States healthcare system. The MCHR doctors soon realized that fighting segregation would mean not just caring for white volunteers, but exposing and correcting the shocking inequalities in segregated health care. They pioneered community health plans and brought medical care to underserved, or unserved, areas.


Though education was the most famous battleground for integration, the appaling injustice of segregated health care had equally devastating consequences. Award-winning historian John Dittmer, author of the classic Civil Rights history Local People, has written an insightful and moving account of a group of idealists who put their careers in the service of the belief, stated in their motto, that "Health Care Is a Human Right."

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 1, 2009
ISBN9781608191857
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The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care
Author

John Dittmer

John Dittmer is author of Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 and Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize. He has taught in the history departments at Tougaloo College, Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and DePauw University, where he is professor emeritus.

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3.5/5

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Unfortunately I cannot recommend [The Good Doctors: The medical committee for human rights and the struggle for social justice in health care] by John Dittmer for general reading or interest, but it may be an important historical reference. Good Doctors details the Medical Committee for Human Rights (frustratingly referred to as MCHR), which was the medical wing of the Civil Rights movement. Its members struggled for social justice in America's provision of health care. This committee provided health care and first aid for civil rights activists and advocated for socially just access to health care throughout America. Often, the stories are lost in the shuffle behind the icons of the age. Importantly, Civil Rights, Medical Rights and Human Rights movements were not isolated incidents but rather everyday people made a real difference in people's quality of life. One of the more lasting effects includes the groundwork for desegregating hospitals throughout the American South. With this new book John Dittmer provides a VERY detailed reference of civil rights medical struggles and of the activists who waged them. This is a wealth of documentation and reference material. It provides numbing minutiae on the workings of the committee: its agendas, arguments, and goals. Dittmer briefly biographies many (SO MANY!) of those whose paths intersected this committee. It was very difficult to keep track of who was who throughout this book, impossible to get a sense of personality or motivations, and jumbled all of them together in my head. Similarly, myriads of organizations were discussed and referred to with acronyms, leaving many pages full of ‘alphabet soup’. This work is a relevant book today, as our national debate swirls around reforms of health insurance and health care. It is poignant to read that one worker 'had learned, as had other volunteers before him, that it was impossible to separate civil rights activity from health care advocacy'. Practically a half century later, racism and inequity are alive and well, and basic health care access is still frequently unavailable or unaffordable across wealth or racial lines. Despite its important content and thorough documentation, this was a difficult book to read and it failed to maintain my interest and initial enthusiasm. The voluminous detail made this book directed towards a specialized audience: perhaps those interested in the history of the civil and human rights, American health care communities, or those directly involved with the people/events. There was an assumption of prior familiarity with civil rights history and chronology. Additionally, poor writing quality was evident throughout. The narrative was dry, often sacrificing flow for detail and irrelevancies. Paragraphs frequently lacked a topic sentence, seemed unrelated, or would suddenly introduce another person without providing a connection. Finally, aside from providing a reference and account of the Medical Committee for Human Rights and the people involved, this book had very little thesis. There was very little contextualization for the general reader to gain a sense of the lasting impact of this committee or its relative import against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement as a whole.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I think of myself as someone who has read a lot of different things about the civil rights years, so this book appealed to me because it provided a completely different perspective on racism and civil rights era. While it does get bogged down in a lot of detail, I found enough compelling information to make it a worthwhile read. I would love to ask some members of AMA what their perspective is on this period when they stood by in silence and allowed segregated facilities or refusal of medical care. I also found the sections on the development of community health clinics very interesting.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Good Doctors is an interesting and well-researched account of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, a group of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals that played a large yet often ignored role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.Dittmer does an excellent job portraying the people who played major roles in the organization and the sacrifices they made in order to provide medical services to other activists and bring to light the injustice of segregated health care. For their belief that every human being deserves quality health care regardless of the color of their skin, many left lucrative private practices, were ostracized by many in their professional community, and even faced violence and arrest.This account of the unsung heroes behind the scenes of the civil rights movement is worth reading for anyone who is interested in the movement or health care.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) was created in 1964 to provide medical care to civil rights workers during Freedom Summer, the grass roots program that sought to register thousands of black Mississippians to vote. The Magnolia State in the mid-1960s was the poorest and most repressive state in the Union, as many of its black citizens were starving, dying from preventable illness, and in great fear of seeking their civil rights due to hostile whites, state and local police that brutally preserved the status quo, and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the Deep South.The MCHR expanded its operations throughout the South, after some initial missteps, and played a major role in desegregating hospitals that were in violation of federal law, providing health care and education for blacks who had never been seen by a physician, and treating activists and local residents felled by police and angry mobs during civil rights marches and demonstrations. The MCHR also took an active role in opposing the Vietnam War, encouraging medical schools to enroll more minority physicians, opening community health centers, and lobbying for universal health care.In later years the effectiveness of the MCHR was diminished by internecine feuds and external opposition, and it withered and collapsed during the early 1980s due to financial difficulty and a lack of purpose. Despite its short existence and limited successes, its efforts continue to bear fruit: many more minority physicians and nurses are in practice in the Deep South and throughout the United States; community health centers continue to operate in underserved areas; and medical organizations such as Doctors for America and Physicians for a National Health Program continue to lobby for universal health care.John Dittmer, a professor of history at DePauw University, does a great service by chronicling the efforts of the MCHR in "The Good Doctors". However, the book is marred by an overemphasis on detail, as the author includes too many people and facts, which made this a difficult book to enjoy. I doubt that I would read it to the end if I wasn't highly interested in the topic. The story of the MCHR is a compelling one, but it deserves a better narrative, and I would only recommend "The Good Doctors" for the reader with a strong desire to learn about this Committee.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    As this was an Early Reviewers book from LT, I cracked open the cover with great anticipation…read a few chapters and then really slowed down.Author John Dittmer bogs the reader down with too many details. The story is definitely set in an interesting time. The Medical Committee for Human Rights was organized in the summer of 1964 by medical professionals, mostly white and Northern, who had a desire to provide care and support for Civil Rights activists who were organizing black voters in Mississippi. They left their lives and lucrative private practices to march beside and tend the wounds of demonstrators from Freedom Summer, to the March on Selma, to the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. Their firsthand view on the dramatic battle for Civil Rights, encouraged the group to expand its mission to other causes such as poverty to the war in Vietnam, and finally the whole US healthcare system. They pioneered community health plans and brought medical care to areas that were not being served.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Movements, revolutions, any societal change is accompanied with power struggles, politics, egos, varying interpretations of the mission and more. John Dittmer's book well documents the history and work of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. The MCHR began in the 1960's, originally to provide medical services to those involved in the civil rights demonstrations and work in the South. Dittmer gives us the backdrop of the struggles of those involved in the civil rights movement and describes the resulting impact of the work of MCHR. From the beginning and to it end in the late 70's, MCHR was fraught with internal struggles about their purpose, the way services would be established and where, who would stand in leadership positions and always, always fundraising. This background is important. Many write of social movements, even wars, only in terms of the glory with spotlight on the victors and heroes. Dittmer tells us of the internal politics and wranglings of the personalities of MCHR, illustrating that despite this, dedicated men and women made a difference. The MCHR core of medical professionals made a difference, moving the civil rights movement forward and certainly changing the delivery of health care to the poor in America. MCHR physicians and nurses made public the racist terrorism taking place in the South, pressured the US President and Congress to enforce and enact legislation to combat segregation, and establish a system of health information and services to the blacks in the South. Their work impacted many other areas through the years, such as workplace safety, even making public dangerous experiments with drugs taking place in institutions in America, inflicted on helpless children, the poor and unsuspecting patients. Accomplishments and the lasting impact of MCHR is far reaching and continues to today as the debate and struggle for health care, quality health care for all Americans continues. MCHR as an organization was little known as they carried on their work and impacted the course of civil rights and health care. The group made a difference and the core men and women carried on after MCHR ceased to be. As individuals and sometimes working together, former members continued social activism, established model clinics for poor communities that exist today, taught and influenced medical school curriculums, and in many others way advanced health care for poor. As the debate on American health in 2009 continues, with it's own internal politics, egos and struggles, the voices of MCHR can be heard on public radio, in congressional hearings, their work evident in social action movements - wherever the cause for human rights calls.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    'The Good Doctors' is a rich and detailed account of the struggles of both patients and doctors to have/give basic access to health care during the Civil Rights Movement. It also gives us the historical background for the birth of community health centers by the MCHR (Medical Committee for Human Rights.)The establishment of community health, was as Dittmer points out, the most significant achievement to make health care accessible to poor blacks. The author makes it very clear that this started not as a government endeavor but a community effort. Later the movement partnered with gov't to expand. In particular, Sen Edward Kennedy appropriated gov't funds to assist communities with the creation of health centers, predominately in the South. Dittmer, an award-winning history professor, gives great detail to subject that is rarely addressed. He has written several books about the Civil Rights Movement, though this is the only one I have read. He exposes details and ideas that I hadn't read before, and in light of the current health care debate, the book gave an interesting perspective.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was an interesting read that took a little bit of time to read. You really have to be in a certain mindset to read it. I liked it and it amazed me on what the Doctors went thru during the Civil Rights Era. Not just the black Doctors, the white ones as well. Plus there is added insight in what the black patients and lower income persons as well. I really stopped and made me think the entire time period and what many people endured during this time. I think all people should read this book and it would help to have a better understanding on what both races went through. Not only the problems the Doctors faced, but the nurses as well. I really liked the afterward that gave updates on what each Doctor went on to do after the Civil Rights movement.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Unfortunately I cannot recommend [The Good Doctors: The medical committee for human rights and the struggle for social justice in health care] by John Dittmer for general reading or interest, but it may be an important historical reference. Good Doctors details the Medical Committee for Human Rights (frustratingly referred to as MCHR), which was the medical wing of the Civil Rights movement. Its members struggled for social justice in America's provision of health care. This committee provided health care and first aid for civil rights activists and advocated for socially just access to health care throughout America. Often, the stories are lost in the shuffle behind the icons of the age. Importantly, Civil Rights, Medical Rights and Human Rights movements were not isolated incidents but rather everyday people made a real difference in people's quality of life. One of the more lasting effects includes the groundwork for desegregating hospitals throughout the American South. With this new book John Dittmer provides a VERY detailed reference of civil rights medical struggles and of the activists who waged them. This is a wealth of documentation and reference material. It provides numbing minutiae on the workings of the committee: its agendas, arguments, and goals. Dittmer briefly biographies many (SO MANY!) of those whose paths intersected this committee. It was very difficult to keep track of who was who throughout this book, impossible to get a sense of personality or motivations, and jumbled all of them together in my head. Similarly, myriads of organizations were discussed and referred to with acronyms, leaving many pages full of ‘alphabet soup’. This work is a relevant book today, as our national debate swirls around reforms of health insurance and health care. It is poignant to read that one worker 'had learned, as had other volunteers before him, that it was impossible to separate civil rights activity from health care advocacy'. Practically a half century later, racism and inequity are alive and well, and basic health care access is still frequently unavailable or unaffordable across wealth or racial lines. Despite its important content and thorough documentation, this was a difficult book to read and it failed to maintain my interest and initial enthusiasm. The voluminous detail made this book directed towards a specialized audience: perhaps those interested in the history of the civil and human rights, American health care communities, or those directly involved with the people/events. There was an assumption of prior familiarity with civil rights history and chronology. Additionally, poor writing quality was evident throughout. The narrative was dry, often sacrificing flow for detail and irrelevancies. Paragraphs frequently lacked a topic sentence, seemed unrelated, or would suddenly introduce another person without providing a connection. Finally, aside from providing a reference and account of the Medical Committee for Human Rights and the people involved, this book had very little thesis. There was very little contextualization for the general reader to gain a sense of the lasting impact of this committee or its relative import against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement as a whole.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found John Dittmer’s The Good Doctors to be inspiring and disheartening at the same time. The book is a well-written, well-researched volume that tells the story of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. Dittmer admits that he was moved to write this book when it was pointed out to him, at a commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of Freedom Summer that his new book only contained one paragraph about the MCHR but that paragraph had two factual errors in it. Any student of military history will tell you that support units get no respect. That was the original reason that the MCHR was formed, to provide medical support to the civil rights workers in the South. They did that and much more. MCHR members risked injury and death to be there to provide medical attention to anyone injured in marches and protests across the South, in Washington, San Francisco, Chicago, and Wounded Knee. They started community health centers and worked to pass every health care reform of the 1960s and 70s. Dittmer covers their failures as well as their accomplishments, he details how policy disputes and ideology prevented the MCHR from being more effective and eventually caused it to fade away.What I found most impressive about the book was the attention given to the background of the people involved. It was clear that the people involved had, personally, more to loose than they would gain from their participation. Dittmer dismisses some of the affluent doctors of loosing interest in the cause after they earned some ‘war stories’ to tell their friends and of loosing interest when other liberal causes came up but the main players courage shines through, Dr. June Finer’s fearless outrage at a policeman stealing a flag away from a young boy, Dr. Bob Smith’s thoughts as he marched down secluded Mississippi back roads as Dr. King’s personal physician, and the efforts of the many doctors, nurses and medical students who struggled to improve health care for all the citizens of the nation. The penultimate chapter deals with the history of national health care reform since the Truman administration and is exceptionally relevant to the efforts being made in Washington this year.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    John Dittmer relates the history and development of the Medical Committee for Human Rights and the involvement of the Committee and its members in not only the civil rights movement, but in every “social justice” movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. His stated intent was to give credit to the medical professionals who put themselves into difficult and sometimes dangerous situations in the interest of advancing medical care to blacks, to the poor, and to anyone deprived of access to care because of his or her status in the community. Unfortunately, despite the author’s apparent substantial knowledge of the era, the book is so poorly written that it can only leave the interested reader frustrated.At the outset, many scenes and individuals were described in a way that made me feel they were being flashed on a screen. I have read a few books about the civil rights movement, but only after I had read about two-thirds of the book did I have a real sense of who were the significant individual participants in the movement. Someone with no prior knowledge of the events of the times would be at a complete loss to understand and follow the narrative.There are occasional glimpses of how good this book and the telling of this story could be. Chapter 6, The Last March, and Chapter 7, The War at Home, are focused and cohesive. Most of the rest of the book, however, gave the impression of reading newspaper or magazine reports that were thrown together in an attempt to write a book. The writing was anecdotal. Analysis was lacking and there were often sweeping generalizations resulting in unsupported conclusions. Transitions between chapters, and sometimes between paragraphs, were choppy and bordered on the illogical. For those of us interested in the civil rights movement and social justice issues of the era, the subject the author tries to illuminate holds great interest. Perhaps Dittmer wrote this book in a rush. Certainly his editors did him no favors. The information is there; I would like to see the author “take a Mulligan” and do it over.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This is the story of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR), an organization founded in 1964 to provide medical care for civil rights activists. At times, such as when the author is describing the actual medical efforts of the MCHR, such as in providing medical care to the protestors at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the book is somewhat interesting.More often than not, however, the book is tedious, one of the dullest books I've read in quite some time. If it were not an Early Reviewers book (and so one I strongly aimed to finish), I would have put it aside after about page 25. Instead, I somehow slogged my way to the end.The book placed way too much emphasis on the in-fighting at the MCHR, including page after page of information such as x chapter disbanded in protest or Dr Y took over Z organization only to move on to a job at ABC Hospital 6 months later.The lack of an index or even a list of organizations and individuals mentioned is ridiculous. It's almost impossible to keep track of who's who or what's what.I cannot recommend this book at all. It's an extremely disappointing book on what should've been a fascinating topic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    About halfway through this book I realized that the reason it often seemed frustratingly muddled and amorphous was because the movement being chronicled was frustratingly muddled and amorphous. Once I had that realization, the book became much more enjoyable, as I stopped trying to make everything logical and ordered. Although the book has as it's central focus the Medical Committee for Human Rights, it is also the story of many different individuals, who had many different points of view about what their organization should be doing and how it should do it, and even on who should be part of it. Much of the book demonstrates how anyone trying to run an organization of the left during the sixties and seventies could feel as if he or she were herding cats, and Dittmer does not gloss over the effect of these petty fights and vanities. One of the more interesting sections of the book deals with how Sen. Edward Kennedy's first proposal for universal coverage was derailed, in part, by the failure of the MCHR and similar leftist groups to rally behind it, choosing instead to argue for a much more radical proposal that eliminated private health care and insurance. Some thirty years later, some former MCHR members express regret that an opportunity was lost.Although much of the research stems from Dittmer's interviews with former MCHR members, it also makes use of correspondence and papers from the MCHR that he was given complete access to, bolstering its authoritative tone. Focused as it is on a narrow aspect of the civil rights movement and the New Left, this book is better for people who already have some familiarity with the broader framework, but it is a welcome addition to the record in any event.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It is a bit academic and therefore a much slower read than I anticipated, but the information on the brave health care workers is monumental. Like every other movement in our history, the iconic faces are out there and all the worker bees are forgotten. Hopefully this book will bring those faces to the front and keep them in our memory. It also talks about the beginnings of the organizations such as the Black Panthers, SCLC, SNCC etc. It's a veritable alphabet soup.The focus of the book changed from the early 60s and the civil rights movement, particularly in Mississippi, to the late 60s anti-war movement and the concern for universal health care. What was particularly startling was the fight against the AMA which was racist, bigotted, sexist, elitist and unconcerned with anything but the bottom line. The quote from AMA president Dr. Milford O. Rouse said it all: "the concept of health care as a right rather than a privilege" was particularly alarming. No wonder so many Americans still don't have health care forty years after the fact.I have a quarrel with the title. I understand why it was chosen from the author's explanation, but more and more of the information is about the nurses like Phyllis Cunningham and Josephine Disparti who lived in the south for months and months, not the few weeks the 'good doctors' gave up to the cause. It would have been a wonderful book with the focus on the these female nurses mentioned time and again.For anyone interested in any of the 60s reform movements this book will give you a much better picture of what was taking place behind the scenes and how the demonstrators and activists were cared for when the shooting stopped. Well worth the read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    John Dittmer's The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care traces a medical organization from its beginnings in the civil rights era to its decline and later demise in the 1980s. A neglected story from the struggle for civil rights, it has ramifications for the ongoing debate over health care reform.

    The group was originally incarnated as the Medical Committee for Civil Rights in response to the American Medical Association's refusal to promote integration among its member state associations. After a slight name change, volunteers from the MCHR traveled south during the Freedom Summer of 1964. After a narrowly focused beginning , members quickly diversified in interests and became involved in other social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Dittmer does not overlook the internal tensions within the MCHR, yet his respect for the participants is evident.

    The book is at its best when describing MCHR activities in the 1960s south. Like his Bancroft Prize-winning book, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, Dittmer relies heavily on interviews and this section of the book reads as oral history. Later sections seem to become unfocused, reflecting the diversification of the MCHR‘s activities, and Dittmer tends to use documentary sources.

    The Good Doctors assumes some existing familiarity with the Civil Rights Era and its participants, but is otherwise suitable for both academic and lay readers alike. It is an excellent history of a neglected participant in the era. The lingering legacy of segregation and the current drive for universal health care on Capitol Hill make this a history book with timely significance.

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Superbly written (and I would expect nothing less from this author), The Good Doctors examines the creation, role, activism and struggles of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, which started as an organization to help out civil rights workers in the south during the early 1960s. The committee's statement of purpose:"We are deeply concerned with the health needs of the socially deprived. It is our purpose to initiate activities to improve their health status and to provide professional support and assistance to organizations concerned with human rights." (62). That is precisely what the members of this committee did, whether it be to civil rights workers in Mississippi or other places in the south, or to offer medical aid to those who marched in Selma (and other places). The Committee also worked tirelessly to gather evidence of racial discrimination in the cases of hospitals and medical officials who had taken federal funding but who were actively discriminating against African-Americans not only in the south, but in other parts of the country as well. Members were often attacked by law enforcement while they were in the Jim Crow-ruled American South, making their jobs even tougher but still they kept on with their work. The members set up health clinics and tried to get to the root of social injustice and help locals to gain some sense of self-empowerment. Members were there at Wounded Knee, at Alcatraz, at the Chicago Democratic Convention, at various anti-Vietnam war demonstrations and the list goes on. The Committee worked to try to get the message across to politicians, the AMA and other organizations that health care is not a privilege, but rather a human right, through their efforts to support a national health program. The most impressive part of this book (not that the whole thing isn't great) was Dittmer's examination of how the MCHR went from its original conception to the "medical arm of the new left." From the Black Panthers on down to the Progressive Labor Party in the 1970s and beyond, Dittmer shows how national and local politics, infighting among factions in the local Committee chapters and at higher levels, and other factors changed the face of MCHR as the decades progressed. The changing face of Black activism, taking on a more "Black Nationalism" tone, the wave of ideologies of the revolutionary organizations and parties in the 70s also led to changes in the organization. Dittmer does an excellent job in examining these phenomenon. Finally, not only does Dittmer vew the Committee as an entity, he goes on in some detail to examine the motivations and backgrounds of the founding members, and those who joined later, as well as the hard and often dangerous being work done by individual members out in the field, anywhere where racism & poverty often kept people in ignorance or prevented people from receiving decent health care. I can't really do this book justice in a few short paragraphs, but it is simply excellent. Anyone with any interest in a more in-depth look at the Civil Rights Movement itself, or as it is connected to the history of medicine in the US should read this book. I highly recommend it. thanks, Librarything Early Reviewers program!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    John Dittmer, The Good Doctors: The Medical Commitee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), 311 pages.In a long-awaited follow-up to the Bancroft Award-winning Local People, John Dittmer lucidly lays out the story of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) and their role in the Civil Rights Movement. Inspired by the devotion and courage of civil rights protestors, medical professionals around the country came together in the MCHR to "do their part." Members initially saw their role as providing first aid and other immedicate medical assistance to protestors injured in confrontations with police and other hostile southern whites. Exposure to the prevailing jim crow medical system in the South, however, led many to become advocates for the ending of apartheid in that region, and advocates of "Health Care is a Human Right."Many of the early leaders of the MCHR were Jewish doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals who had suffered discrimination of one sort or another themselves. Frustrated that the American Medical Associtation (AMA) refused to call on southern hospitals to grant black doctors hospital privileges, MCHR members also began documenting instances of discriminatory practice as they observed it happening--particularly after the Supreme Court held that hospitals built with federal monies could not discriminate on the basis of race.The membership of the MCHR was largely white, since that was the makeup of a large portion of the medical professional field. This created tensions withing the civil rights movement, however. Mississippi became the focal point for both the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) in 1963. After suffering a year of extreme violence for this choice, the decision was made to recruit white college students to aid in the voter registration drives in Mississippi during the summer of 1964, because violence visited upon middle class white college students would be newsworthy.