AAMC Sample exam P/S Q53

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The passage says that they controlled for "hospital characteristics, such as hospital revascularization rate". For some reason, that made me eliminate C and the possibility of institutional discrimination

Also, I was confused about what "medically indicated" means. If the procedure was medically indicated, but not followed through with, does that mean the individual provider on the case thought that the procedure was necessary, but due to the hospital's decision, it didn't occur?

If that is what medically indicated means, that would push me more towards B as an answer, because it says that the procedure was more medically indicated among whites. Therefore, some providers may show prejudice when making decisions about revascularization use.

And to follow up, if the evidence showed that the procedure was more medically indicated among certain races, doesn't that prove provider level discrimination? Since they are behaving differently based on race? This is given that my definition of "medically indicated" above is correct.

 

[Nugester]

Medically indicated means you are advised a treatment because of a condition by a doctor. When they control for variables, like age and income, they make sure that they are similar. You wouldn't want a 30 year old AND a 70 year old in the study. You'd range it from 65-75. To control for revascularization rates, you would pick hospital that had similar numbers.

If the procedure was medically indicated and not followed through, there could be many reasons, such as the patient opted not to follow the advice, insurance coverage etc. Now for the question at hand; the passage states that procedures were more medically indicated in whites than blacks, and in men than women. Data is show that a higher % of black patients did not receive this procedure as opposed to their counterparts.

All this can tell you is that there is a system wide bias against the revascularization procedure. You can not infer anything about individual or health provider racial discrimination because there isn't any data presented such as surveys etc.