In her monograph Examining Tuskegee, Susan Reverby offers us so much more than just a retelling of the “The Infamous Study.” While the Study is and remains the classic example of racism in medicine and one of the most egregious examples medical ethics gone awry, in her book Reverby suggests the Study’s history needs to be further nuanced in order to understand its historical importance and cultural legacy. Thus she breaks her book into three distinct sections: Testimony (which documents the historical events of the Study); Testifying (in which she delves deeply into the biographical details of the various historical actors from the participants to the the U.S. Public Health Service doctors to the Nurse who recruited participants); and Traveling (in which she traces the cultural legacies of the study).
In an essay of roughly 1200 words (+/-10%) reflect on Reverby’s argument a bit further. How does her tripartite framework for the book help us reconsider the historical importance of the Study and its legacy? How does she present the cultural legacy of Tuskegee? Why does she make the choices shes makes in the way she retells the story of this great tragedy of public health and medical science gone horribly wrong? What lessons does she suggest we can learn from the medical tragedy that was the U.S. Public Health Service Study of Untreated Syphilis