Implicit Racial Bias in Medical School Admissions
- 1 March 2017
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Academic Medicine
- Vol. 92 (3), 365-369
- https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0000000000001388
Abstract
Implicit white race preference has been associated with discrimination in the education, criminal justice, and health care systems and could impede the entry of African Americans into the medical profession, where they and other minorities remain underrepresented. Little is known about implicit racial bias in medical school admissions committees. To measure implicit racial bias, all 140 members of the Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCOM) admissions committee took the black–white implicit association test (IAT) prior to the 2012–2013 cycle. Results were collated by gender and student versus faculty status. To record their impressions of the impact of the IAT on the admissions process, members took a survey at the end of the cycle, which 100 (71%) completed. All groups (men, women, students, faculty) displayed significant levels of implicit white preference; men (d = 0.697) and faculty (d = 0.820) had the largest bias measures (P < .001). Most survey respondents (67%) thought the IAT might be helpful in reducing bias, 48% were conscious of their individual results when interviewing candidates in the next cycle, and 21% reported knowledge of their IAT results impacted their admissions decisions in the subsequent cycle. The class that matriculated following the IAT exercise was the most diverse in OSUCOM’s history at that time. Future directions include preceding and following the IAT with more robust reflection and education on unconscious bias. The authors join others in calling for an examination of bias at all levels of academic medicine.Keywords
This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- Do American Indian mascots = American Indian people? Examining implicit bias towards American Indian people and American Indian mascotsAmerican Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research, 2011
- Physicians’ Implicit and Explicit Attitudes About Race by MD Race, Ethnicity, and GenderJournal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 2009
- Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2009
- Pervasiveness and correlates of implicit attitudes and stereotypesEuropean Review of Social Psychology, 2007
- Implicit Bias among Physicians and its Prediction of Thrombolysis Decisions for Black and White PatientsJournal of General Internal Medicine, 2007
- Across the thin blue line: Police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007
- Are teachers' expectations different for racial minority than for European American students? A meta-analysis.Journal of Educational Psychology, 2007
- Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998