Self-Awareness and Cultural Identity as an Effort to Reduce Bias in Medicine.
In response to persistently documented health disparities based on race and other demographic factors, medical schools have implemented "cultural competency" coursework. While many of these courses have focused on strategies for treating patients of different cultural backgrounds, very few have addressed the impact of the physician's own cultural background and offered methods to overcome his or her own unconscious biases. In hopes of training physicians to contextualize the impact of their own cultural background on their ability to provide optimal patient care, the authors created a 14-session course on culture, self-reflection, and medicine. After completing the course, students reported an increased awareness of their blind spots and that providing equitable care and treatment would require lifelong reflection and attention to these biases. In this article, the authors describe the formation and implementation of a novel medical school course on self-awareness and cultural identity designed to reduce unconscious bias in medicine. Finally, we discuss our observations and lessons learned after more than 10 years of experience teaching the course.
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Augustus_White@hms.harvard.edu.
Augustus A
AA
White
Allies for Health, Reno, NV, USA.
Heather J
HJ
Logghe
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Dan A
DA
Goodenough
Boston University School of Medicine and Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
Linda L
LL
Barnes
Tufts University School of Medicine, Portland, ME, USA.
Anne
A
Hallward
Harvard University Health Service, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Irving M
IM
Allen
Brookside Community Health Center AND Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
David W
DW
Green
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Edward
E
Krupat
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.|Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Roxana
R
Llerena-Quinn
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D054521:Cultural Competency / Q000193:education*; D003479:Curriculum; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans
Cross-cultural literacy; Cultural anthropology; Cultural competency; Cultural humility; Diversity; Health disparities; Health equity; Intersectionality; Medical education; Microaggression; Resiliency enhancement; Self-awareness; Stereotyping; Unconscious bias