Thursday, November 14, 2019

Recognizing race and gender biases in healthcare


One of my favorite shows on television is comedian John Oliver’s ‘Last Week Tonight’. I enjoy his political satire show for many reasons. Thanks to its platform on HBO John Oliver is able to discuss his true feelings about the news over the past week, and specific opinions about politicians in the news. His show is informative and hilarious, but what I enjoy the most is the second half of the show when he reports on a specific story or issue. On his August 18th episode of this year, he devoted the second part of his show to investigating gender and racial bias in medicine. This subject is especially important to me and was both upsetting and informative to watch. The segment begins with interview clips from white women and women of color who experienced biases when they sought medical treatment. The biases they were faced with inhibited their care, and for some resulted in adverse outcomes. These women are not alone in their experience.

A study published in 2014 in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine presented internal and family medicine physicians with vignettes of patients with osteoarthritis. The vignettes were identical except for patient race, one Caucasian and one African American. Participants reported that they believed the white patients were being more medically cooperative than the African American ones1. Another study published in 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, found that a substantial number of the participants surveyed, which included white lay-people, medical students, and residents, held false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. Furthermore, the study found that these false beliefs predict racial bias in pain perception and treatment recommendations2. These studies demonstrate the real implications bias has on patients and the healthcare they receive.


Race and gender biases in healthcare are not relics of the past - they are very much present and perpetuated in our current healthcare system. I believe that it is the provider’s obligation to themselves and their patients to take the time to assess their own inherent biases. From this, one can learn how to recognize bias in themselves and others, and work to provide specialized and bias-free care for patients. In theory, this will lead to providing the best care possible for the patient, and hopefully a positive experience in the healthcare setting. This in turn promotes follow-up and access to preventive healthcare measures. Additionally, I believe it is important to teach medical students early in their medical careers about implicit biases and the effects of gender and racial biases in medicine. If these concepts are broken down early on, it will decrease perpetuation, but it will also leave ample time for students to further investigate and discuss this important aspect of healthcare.

Camille Campion   DUCOM 2020

 

Articles Cited:

  1. Oliver M.N.., K.M. Wells, J.A. Joy-Gaba, et al. Do physicians’ implicit views of African Americans affect clinical decision making?. JABFM.2014, 27(2)177-188.
  2. Hoffman K.M., S. Trawalter, J. R. Axt, and M. N. Oliver. Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. PNAS. 2016. 113(16)4296-4301.
I highly recommend viewing the segment, please find the link below:


 
Inherent bias survey by Project Implicit developed by Harvard University: