10.18130/Q58P-CQ61
Dastan, Kovosh
Kovosh
Dastan
University of Virginia
Racial Bias in the Assessment of Pain among HBCU Trainees
University of Virginia
2022
Conference Paper
2022 UVA Health Disparities Conference
2022
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)
The objectives of our study were to assess whether U.S. medical students and resident physicians (collectively referred to as trainees) at Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) – particularly Howard University College of Medicine and Howard University Hospital – displayed any racial bias in the assessment of pain or treatment recommendations; if they held any false beliefs about biological differences between Black and White people; if any of their existing biases and/or beliefs were the same as those found in their counterparts at a predominantly white institution (PWI); and if they were equally, more, or less accurate in their treatment recommendations for pain in Black vs White patients as a result of their beliefs and/or biases. When compared to the landmark 2016 University of Virginia study which surveyed trainees at their institution, significantly less HBCU-affiliated (predominantly BIPOC) students and residents held any false beliefs about biological differences between Blacks and Whites; their false beliefs (if any) did not impact the treatment of the sample patients, and their assessment of pain was not impacted by the patient’s race. Interestingly, the White respondents at Howard also did not exhibit any racial bias in pain assessment or treatment recommendations, indicating that perhaps active teaching and implicit bias training by HBCUs counteracts racial bias in these individuals.