Unconscious Racial Bias Leads to Different Treatments by Doctors

Unconscious racial bias may lead doctors to offer different treatment options to different races, according to a new study. In the study, doctors were asked to review a medical file of a hypothetical patient that was either black or white. The researchers found that if the doctor was unconsciously pro-white, he was more likely to recommend medical intervention to white patients.

In the study, Alexander Green, a researcher from Harvard Medical School and his team tested doctors for unconscious medical bias. Then they tried to predict using the racial bias whether or not a doctor would recommend a procedure to dissolve blood clots for both black and white patients.

The survey included 220 doctors in four medical centers in Boston and Atlanta. The researchers used a survey that randomly assigned each doctor a black or white patient with a clinical history and symptoms that suggested a myocardial infarction. The doctors were asked if they would recommend a procedure to dissolve the blood clots.

The Harvard Medical School survey also asked the doctors if they preferred white or black Americans, ideas about the cooperativeness of the patients, and how patients responded to medical procedures. The doctors also completed a questionnaire asking them about their racial bias.

The doctors were also tested using a computer-based Implicit Association Test, which is commonly used to detect unconscious associations or biases.

Doctors who participated in the study said that they had no preference for one race of patient to the other. They also stated that they believed that both races were equally cooperative.

However, the results of their unconscious thoughts were quite different. The results indicated that the doctors unconsciously preferred white patients, and believed that black patients were more difficult patients and less cooperative.

The doctors' reported views did not affect their opinion on whether or not there should be a medical intervention to remove blood clots. However, their unconscious views of the race of patients caused them to recommend medical intervention more often to white patients. In fact, as the person's pro-white bias increased, so did the likelihood that they would recommend medical intervention for the white patient.

The authors concluded in the press release that "implicit biases are primarily unconscious and do not imply overt racism. They do however remind us that implicit biases may affect the behavior even of those individuals who have nothing but the best intentions, including those in medical practice."

SOURCES:

"Emergency treatment may be only skin deep," Eurekalert. URL:(http://www.springer-sbm.com/index.php?id=291&backPID=132&L=0&tx_tnc_news=3573&cHash=daac2bdc7a)