History shows us that black and brown people have repeatedly been used as test subjects without their consent, from the Tuskegee experiment that shortened the lives of black men with syphilis, to forced sterilization of unsuspecting poor black women during abdominal surgery in Mississippi. While I don’t know any doctors who emulate Rhoads, more subtly, a 2015 survey found that 50 percent of medical students at the University of Virginia think black people naturally feel less pain. Other studies show that nationally, black people are under-treated for pain. Doctors are also 71 percent less likely to suggest routine clinical screening such as colonoscopy to black patients with a family history of colon cancer — and 31 percent less likely to Latino patients — in comparison with white ones, even though these patients are more likely to die from the cancer.