Bloggers:
Fathima Keshia Suhail, BS | Twitter handle @KeshiaSuhail
Viren Kaul, MD | Twitter handle @virenkaul
About the bloggers:
Keshia is final year medical student at St. George’s University and an incoming Internal Medicine resident at SUNY Upstate Medical University. She is interested in pulmonary and critical care medicine and medical education. She is currently studying the challenges faced by International Medical Graduates who are interested in academic careers.
Viren Kaul is a Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine / Elmhurst Hospital Center. His research interests include medical education, sepsis and palliative care in the critically ill. His focus in medical education is on simulation based performance improvement and inter-professional education.
Citation:
Harris, Ricci, et al. "Ethnic bias and clinical decision-making among New Zealand medical students: an observational study." BMC medical education 18.1 (2018): 18.
Link: https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-018-1120-7
Article: Ethnic bias and clinical decision-making among New Zealand medical students: an observational study
Summary:
This New Zealand (NZ) based study sought to evaluate final year medical students for implicit and explicit biases towards the indigenous Māori (14% of overall population) versus the non-Māori European NZ (70% of overall population) patients and the impact of these biases on clinical decision making in the setting of two chronic disease vignettes. 302 final year medical students out of the 880 invited students entered this web-based cross-sectional study. The bias from knowing the study’s purpose was minimized by providing limited information prior to taking the vignettes. Questions regarding explicit bias were placed last to minimize social desirability bias. Implicit Association Tests (IAT) are well validated tools for studying implicit bias and were customized for the study’s specific patient population, built and hosted securely by Project Implicit®. Explicit bias was measures using a 7-point scale.
This New Zealand (NZ) based study sought to evaluate final year medical students for implicit and explicit biases towards the indigenous Māori (14% of overall population) versus the non-Māori European NZ (70% of overall population) patients and the impact of these biases on clinical decision making in the setting of two chronic disease vignettes. 302 final year medical students out of the 880 invited students entered this web-based cross-sectional study. The bias from knowing the study’s purpose was minimized by providing limited information prior to taking the vignettes. Questions regarding explicit bias were placed last to minimize social desirability bias. Implicit Association Tests (IAT) are well validated tools for studying implicit bias and were customized for the study’s specific patient population, built and hosted securely by Project Implicit®. Explicit bias was measures using a 7-point scale.
Why this article:
This New Zealand (NZ) based study sought to evaluate final year medical students for implicit and explicit biases towards the indigenous Māori (14% of overall population) versus the non-Māori European NZ (70% of overall population) patients and the impact of these biases on clinical decision making in the setting of two chronic disease vignettes. 302 final year medical students out of the 880 invited students entered this web-based cross-sectional study. The bias from knowing the study’s purpose was minimized by providing limited information prior to taking the vignettes. Questions regarding explicit bias were placed last to minimize social desirability bias. Implicit Association Tests (IAT) are well validated tools for studying implicit bias and were customized for the study’s specific patient population, built and hosted securely by Project Implicit®. Explicit bias was measures using a 7-point scale.
