Healthcare is populated by daily heroes who have completed years of education to ensure patients stay healthy and lead happy lives. However, even these heroes are human, and with being human, biases exist. Racial biases are prevalent in healthcare and impact patients and their care unequally. The American Bar Association states, “Racial and ethnic minorities receive lower-quality health care than white people—even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable.” While racial bias is prevalent everywhere, its appearance in healthcare continues to be concerning. Race should not be weaponized when treating patients.

Racial bias traces back to the 20th century with the Tuskegee Syphilis study and the eugenics movement. The Tuskegee Syphilis study was intended to record the history of syphilis and involved 600 black men, 399 with the disease and 201 without. The first ethical violation in this study was the lack of informed consent from the participants. Researchers informed them that they were being treated for “bad blood,” and the participants were monitored by health workers for 15 years. However, as the study progressed, the researchers made no effort to care for the men as they died, went blind, or became insane due to their untreated syphilis. This was despite the discovery of penicillin as a cure for syphilis, which the researchers intentionally withheld from the participants. While there were protests against this unethical study, it continued with the hope of tracking all the participants until their deaths.

The eugenics movement, created by Francis Galton, aimed at “racial improvement.” Eugenicists believed that humankind could be perfected by eliminating those considered to be making humankind “impure.” Eugenics were infamously utilized by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust, where millions of Jews were killed, and 400,000 were forcibly sterilized. Forced sterilization, defined by the International Justice Resource Center as “the involuntary or coerced removal of a person’s ability to reproduce, often through a surgical procedure referred to as a tubal ligation,” was just one way the eugenics movement pursued its goal of maintaining the ‘purity’ of the human race. Eugenics also discouraged the reproduction of physically or mentally challenged people, encouraged segregation, and promoted human genetic engineering. All these movements were based on the idea of certain people not fitting the social norm of the “perfect” human due to race, disability, or sexual orientation. Sophomore Yasmina Royal states, “I have heard of the eugenics movement and we still learn about Francis Galton, it is hard to believe he is someone we still educate ourselves about.” While this may seem extreme and impossible to believe still occurs, both the Tuskegee Syphilis study and the eugenics movement impact the way people of color are treated as patients.

In the 21st century, outward racism is less common compared to implicit bias. Implicit bias is the unconscious, negative bias towards a specific social group. Most humans harbor some form of bias, so while having bias is not uncommon, it is damaging for medical workers. Junior Sumair Arif states, “Bias in general is never good to have in the workforce, but it is especially damaging to those in healthcare.” Implicit bias impacts the way medical workers interact with patients, and any unconscious preconceptions and stereotypes unfortunately pollute communications between patients and their providers. Patient Engagement Hit states, “Implicit bias can also shape the tone with which a clinician speaks to a patient, the content of their communication, and the types of tests or referrals clinicians order.”

The consequences of implicit bias in healthcare are extensive. Patients and providers must trust each other for patients to stay healthy and live fulfilling lives. When providers approach their patients with implicit bias, patients often pick up on this and are then less likely to be completely honest about their health issues. The Joint Commission lists these examples of implicit bias in healthcare: “non-white patients receive fewer cardiovascular interventions and fewer renal transplants, black women are more likely to die after being diagnosed with breast cancer, non-white patients are less likely to be prescribed pain medications (non-narcotic and narcotic), and patients of color are more likely to be blamed for being too passive about their health care.” All of these effects are extremely impactful for patient care, and the only way to change these outcomes is to alter implicit bias in healthcare workers. Senior Viggy Ravilla states, “The only way to get the best patient-provider care is by defeating any biases, and creating an environment of trust.”

Many hospitals and organizations require cultural competency training for providers to acknowledge and address their implicit biases. While helpful, more must be done to address implicit biases. Other ways to mitigate implicit bias include promoting self-awareness, implementing bias awareness tools to identify and mitigate implicit bias in clinical settings, maintaining a diverse workforce, and empowering patients to actively participate in their care. At the end of the day, most humans have biases. However, everyone deserves equal care. To achieve that, healthcare workers must work to acknowledge and conquer their implicit biases. Freshman Medha Rao  states, “This generation has done a really good job at understanding injustices in our society, and I have hope that healthcare as a whole, will change for the better.”