Reply #102: Study: Medical students show racial bias

[Brewman_Jax]

From the article: Edna sits on an examining table ready and alert -- she wants answers about the lump in her breast.

For each of the 21 medical students who enter the room, Edna's fears are still to be discovered.

They each see the same 55-year-old woman, each meet with the same brown eyes. They all hear the same Southern twang in her voice and the same tremor of fear when she asks if she could have cancer.

The only difference is that 12 of the students see a dark-skinned version of Edna, and the other nine students see a light-skinned version.

Edna is a computer-animated image projected life-size on the side of a white wall, and she is used in a study monitoring the interactions of medical students with virtual patients. The study, which has three of five authors from UF, found white medical students were less empathetic toward black virtual patients in one-on-one interviews.

"Bias in the real world is translating to the virtual world," said Benjamin Lok, an author of the study.

The existence of racial partiality in the medical field is a problem acknowledged since the 2002 government study "Unequal Treatment."

"We're not claiming that we have found any new bias," said Lok, an assistant professor in UF's Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering.


Source Note: Jessie Coleman is a writer for the Independent Florida Alligator, the leading news source for the University of Florida. This article was brought to CNN.com by UWIRE, the leading provider of student-generated content. UWIRE aims to identify and promote the brightest young content creators and deliver their work to a larger audience via professional media partners such as CNN.com. Visit UWIRE.com to learn more.





http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/09/virtual.patient.bias/index.html