Do you know how racist and unethical the origins of modern gynecology are? This history starts with who has been dubbed “the father of gynecology,” James “J” Marion Sims. He is responsible for repairing vesicovaginal fistula. It’s an opening that develops between the bladder and the wall of the vagina. The result is that urine leaks out of the vagina. This surgery he discovered has been preserved as a great accomplishment — a life improving procedure still used to this day. Too bad this came at the exploitation of black women. His procedures were similar if not worse than a veterinarian would perform surgery on an animal. To put this in perspective. Black people weren’t yet deemed human, but property (three-fifths human) via Federal law. These life threatening experiments caused excruciating pain, but all Sims needed was legal permission from the “property owners.” Some of his experiments were unsuccessful. A woman named “Lucy” for example, nearly died due to severe blood poisoning. He quartered these women in a small hospital behind his house in Montgomery, Alabama. Between late 1845 and the summer of 1849. He carried out repeated operations on these women. One teenager, a slave named Anarcha had to undergo either 13 to 30 operations (without anesthesia) before Sims got this particular procedure right. Once declared successful it was then deemed safe to perform on white patients. This history has ties to today’s disparities in maternal mortality rates for women according to race. In 2023 Black women had a mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births—more than three times the rate for White women (14.5), and significantly higher than Hispanic (12.4) and Asian (10.7) women. In addition, many white medical students and residents hold false beliefs about biological differences between black and white people contributing to systemic racial disparities in pain assessment and treatment. Black people are systematically under-treated for pain due to racist myths that black people feel less pain, have thicker skin, have less nerve endings, have smaller brains, are sub-human, or superhuman, you name it. This is all connected. The racist, unethical, and inhumane medical experiments of J. Marion Sims have been documented as the foundation for modern gynecological surgery and significantly advancing women's healthcare. Lordhavemercy.