The effects of patient sex and race on medical students’ ratings of quality of life

Prejudice, clinical uncertainty and stereotyping as sources of health disparities

“…How people experience and report pain, for example, varies greatly and systematically with patient characteristics (Bonham, 2001). There have been many creative experiments, using vignettes (Weisse et al, 2001;Rathore et al, 2000), subliminal messages flashed on computer screens (Abreu, 1999), or observations of medical training (Finucane and Carrese, 1990) to study the presence of bias and stereotyping among medical professionals (bias and stereotypes are not distinguished in the studies just noted). What is missing in the literature, in our view, is the empirical connection between these phenomena and differential treatment of racial/ethnic minorities.…”

Influence of Patient Race on Physician Prescribing Decisions: A Randomized On-Line Experiment

“…However, previous studies relying on print photographs or simple textual descriptions of patient race without accompanying images have elicited racially divergent responses. 18,19 Further, the racially divergent choice of agents in the hypertension vignette and the modestly lower mean estimated adherence reported in the hypertension and diabetes vignettes demonstrate that the respondents reacted to the race of the patient actor to which they were randomized. Thus, the findings of the study are likely not artifacts of its design or the manner in which patient race was portrayed.…”

“…However, other studies of the effect of patient race on physician decision making that use similar experimental designs report differences in physicians' treatment decisions as a function of race. 10,18,19 Thus, the lack of a racial difference cannot be attributed to the study's experimental nature. Second, by relying on a single photo of a patient actor, the patient actors' race may not have been communicated to respondents or otherwise elicited elements of the patient-physician interaction, including both verbal and non-verbal communication, that produce racially divergent treatment recommendations.…”

Racial, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status Bias in Senior Medical Student Clinical Decision-Making: A National Survey

“…In one study, students shown videotapes of standardized black female or white male patients ascribed a lower value to the quality of life of the black female "patient" than to the white male "patient." 16 On the other hand, a more recent study failed to show that student assessments of patient vignettes varied by race or social class. 17 Both of these studies, however, were based on students who were early in their medical school training and had no clinical experience, and the studies did not assess clinical decision-making.…”