Medical students are already on double duty with rigorous schedules and material to process, on top of social time with friends and family — so they may not know about the phenomenon of subtly acquired bias.
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) suggests that future practitioners are no more immune to acquiring discrimination than others, and recently featured a blog post examining how unconscious bias could affect the future physician workforce.
In a study at the Ohio State University College of Medicine, notable levels of “implicit white preference” were determined to pervade all levels of the medical school’s admissions committee — men, women, students and faculty alike. The issue at hand is the probability of medical student statistics translating into physician demographics.
“Beyond the generally accepted notion that racial bias is inherently problematic, we should appreciate why unconscious white preference is particularly significant in medical education,” Lauren Abdul-Majeed, student member of the AAFP board of directors, on the AAFP’s Leader Voices Blog, said.
Citing a report indicating that minority medical students are apt to practice in underserved areas and select a primary care specialty — and based on documentation showing that patients are more comfortable with doctors of their own race — Abdul-Majeed suggested that achieving greater medical workforce diversity is critical.
“Medical students, physicians and other health care professionals are all susceptible to making decisions influenced by unconscious biases,” she said.
Abdul-Majeed went on to say that while implicit bias is difficult to identify and confront, medical personnel can make more compassionate decisions once aware of it.
“It is important to remember that unconscious bias is not a reflection of character, but rather a manifestation of educational, familial and societal messages that we process during our lifespan,” she said.
