{"id":26097,"date":"2019-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/2019\/10\/best-intentions-wont-solve-implicit-bias-in-health-care\/"},"modified":"2020-01-06T19:22:27","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T19:22:27","slug":"best-intentions-wont-solve-implicit-bias-in-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/2019\/10\/best-intentions-wont-solve-implicit-bias-in-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Best intentions\u2019 won\u2019t solve implicit bias in health care"},"content":{"rendered":"
When you encounter a new person and start to write a story in your mind about them\u00a0based on nothing more than your own experiences, that is called implicit or unconscious bias. Implicit bias encompasses attitudes and assumptions about race and ethnicity, but also gender, weight, age, social stratum and other classifications.<\/p>\n
In some ways, making snap judgments is how we order our world\u2014slotting people quickly into our own predetermined categories.<\/p>\n
But in medicine, implicit bias creates blind spots that can have real consequences for health outcomes.<\/p>\n
Physical therapy students, for example, who tend to be young, athletic and fit, have confessed to biases against heavier patients or those with sedentary lifestyles, said Jeffrey S. Farroni, Ph.D., J.D.<\/a>, an associate professor of clinical ethics with the Institute for the Medical Humanities at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB)<\/a>. After learning about their unconscious attitudes, those same students aimed to transcend those thoughts to ensure that they provided all of their patients the same level of care.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s compassionate honesty that\u00a0puts us in a position to do our jobs better and take care of folks,\u201d Farroni said. \u201cHow can we get better if we don\u2019t challenge ourselves?\u201d<\/p>\n