Pre-clinical medical student reflections on implicit bias: Implications for learning and teaching
Authors
Motzkus, ChristineWells, Racquel J.
Wang, Xingyue
Chimienti, Sonia N.
Plummer, Deborah L.
Sabin, Janice
Allison, Jeroan J.
Cashman, Suzanne B.
UMass Chan Affiliations
Senior Scholars ProgramSchool of Medicine
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
Department of Psychiatry
Office of Student Affairs
Clinical and Population Health Research
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2019-11-15Keywords
Medical educationPhysicians
Reflection
Medicine and health sciences
Patients
Decision making
Patient advocacy
Professions
Health Services Administration
Health Services Research
Medical Education
Social Psychology
Social Psychology and Interaction
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
CONTEXT: Implicit bias affects health professionals' clinical decision-making; nevertheless, published reports of medical education curricula exploring this concept have been limited. This research documents a recent approach to teaching implicit bias. METHODS: Medical students matriculating during 2014 and 2015 participated in a determinants of health course including instruction about implicit bias. Each submitted a reflective essay discussing implicit bias, the experience of taking the Implicit Association Test (IAT), and other course content. Using grounded theory methodology, student essays that discussed reactions to the IAT were analyzed for content themes based on specific statements mapping to each theme. Twenty-five percent of essays underwent a second review to calculate agreement between raters regarding identification of statements mapping to themes. OUTCOME: Of 250 essays, three-quarters discussed students' results on the IAT. Theme comments related to: a) experience taking the IAT, b) bias in medicine, and c) prescriptive comments. Most of the comments (84%) related to students' acknowledging the importance of recognizing implicit bias. More than one-half (60%) noted that bias affects clinical decision-making, and one-fifth (19%) stated that they believe it is the physician's responsibility to advocate for dismantling bias. CONCLUSIONS: Through taking the IAT and developing an understanding of implicit bias, medical students can gain insight into the effect it may have on clinical decision-making. Having pre-clinical medical students explore implicit bias through the IAT can lay a foundation for discussing this very human tendency.Source
PLoS One. 2019 Nov 15;14(11):e0225058. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225058. eCollection 2019. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0225058Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/41287PubMed ID
31730651Notes
Racquel Wells participated in this study as a medical student in the Senior Scholars research program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
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Rights
Copyright: © 2019 Motzkus et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1371/journal.pone.0225058
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright: © 2019 Motzkus et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.