A second data set, it advised, that included 17,000 physicians did have specialty information, but very few black doctors.

But Harvard's Jena disputed Weeks's observation to the Post, stating, "The reason why prior work has not found much [difference], we believe, is it was simply underpowered; there simply weren’t enough observations on black physicians to get anything meaningful out of it."


And other experts also suggest that despite the statistical challenges, the study's findings are unsurprising.

"We know racial and gender discrimination has been a feature of American culture forever," Thomas LaVeist, chair of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, told Vox, noting that "there's been no increase in the percentage of African-American physicians who graduate from medical school since the 1960s." It runs at roughly 5 percent, according to the news site.

Jena's results revealed that white male physicians had a higher median annual income — in the 2010-13 ACS survey, they made an adjusted median annual income of $253,042 compared to $188,230, or a 35 percent difference.

White and black female doctors made statistically similar amounts, but earned significantly less than the men — with an adjusted median annual income of $163,234 for white and $152,784 for black female physicians.

The authors noted that such disparities "cannot be closed simply by opening up opportunities for minorities and women in higher-paying specialties" and suggested that "efforts to eliminate these disparities might need to look beyond medical school admissions and training to the broader workplace."

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