Implicit Biases Within Healthcare Professions

Recommended APA 7th Edition Citation:

Grinev, L. (2023, June 23). Implicit biases within healthcare professions. In Articles. WellnessToday180. https://wellnesstoday180.net/blog#articles

On the one hand, FitzGerald and Hurst (2017) focused on implicit biases within healthcare professions. Although FitzGerald and Hurst argued that there is no consensual definition for “implicit,” the authors noted that implicit generally aligns with affective priming tasks or one or more mental process features, usually linked with negative schemas. Additionally, FitzGerald and Hurst asserted that implicit is connected to four conscious facets: availability, controllability, intention, and need for mental resources. However, individuals may attempt to reject these apparent and internal negative schemas as aversive racists (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). Still, healthcare professionals are known to have implicit biases towards clients due to their age, ethnicity/race, and socio-economic status and their conditions related to AIDS, brain injury, intravenous drug use, disability, mental illness, and weight (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). Then, implicit biases that healthcare professionals must withstand from clients, coworkers, and superiors are the country of received medical training, gender, ethnicity/race, type of healthcare setting, and years of experience (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017).

On the other hand, explicit biases were examined by Weinberg and Fine (2020). Considerably, outward behaviors and expressions that align with discriminatory, prejudicial, and racist practices can best describe explicit biases. For example, Weinberg and Fine investigated the lesser familiar forms of racism, also known as “modern racism,” which includes aversive, cultural, epistemological, and institutional racism. As a result of modern racism, individuals become racialized, a social process by which an individual is perceived to be nonwhite, which increases the reception of discrimination, prejudices, and racism (Weinberg & Fine, 2020). In other words, explicit biases can be seen as behavioral, environmental, and verbal microaggressions (Weinberg & Fine, 2020).

FitzGerald and Hurst (2017) found that implicit biases between diverse and healthcare populations can impact diagnostic and treatment decisions. Weinberg and Fine stated that the impacts of racism on healthcare professionals could cause conflicting professional and personal values, psychological distress, and reduced job benefits and opportunities. Nevertheless, FitzGerald and Hurst highlighted the moderate correlation between explicit and implicit biases from literary searches. Altogether, the dignity and worth of individuals, as mentioned in Weinberg and Fine, are violated for clients and healthcare professionals because of explicit and implicit biases, whether due to ethnicity/race, gender, health condition, or even weight. Therefore, anti-racist practices signaled by Weinberg and Fine (2020) need to be considered to promote not only the dignity and worth of individuals but also equity and fair healthcare practices.

Utilizing feminist theory emphasizing intersectional practices is another anti-racist practice available in healthcare settings, according to FitzGerald and Hurst (2017). By allowing individuals to identify with multiple social categories, uncontroversial impartial treatment can occur (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). Potential disassociations, mainly those negative, racist, or sexist, can be dismantled to increase equitable care and communications among clients and healthcare professionals (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). Also, clinical vignettes were used in FitzGerald and Hurst, which would be good teaching and training tools to combat explicit and implicit biases.

A real-world example of implicit biases in healthcare can be seen in Sengah (2023). Despite the activist efforts surrounding educational access and security, the affected population were pregnant black schoolgirls in Sengah. Given their gender and medical condition, these girls faced disparities beyond educational exclusion, such as diminished healthcare access from a lack of social support or transportation, which can be read in Sengah. Indeed, Sengah attributed teenage pregnancy to giving rise to socio-economic disparities and vulnerabilities from systemic exclusion. Moreover, teenage pregnancy can signal the beginning or compounded intergenerational trauma, as inferred in Sengah.

Removing disparities rooted in biases, whether within healthcare or from intractable challenges listed in Sengah (2023), requires a possibilist mindset. Combining with social change theory, changemakers gain motivation towards positive actions and effects (Sengah, 2023). In turn, Sengeh proposed that involvement creates opportunities for the dignity and worth of individuals. Thus, liberation from activism and reflection minimizes the impacts of oppression, including the embodiment and expression of biases impacting qualities of life, as inferred by Sengah.

References

FitzGerald, C., & Hurst, S. (2017). Implicit bias in healthcare professionals: a systematic review. BMC Medical Ethics, 18(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-017-0179-8

Sengeh, D. M. (2023). Radical inclusion: Seven steps to help you create a more just workplace, home, and world. Flatiron Books: A Moment of Lift Book.

Weinberg, M., & Fine, M. (2020). Racisms and microaggressions in social work: the experience of racialized practitioners in Canada. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1080/15313204.2020.1839614