As outed earlier that I'm old enough to know that there were these sheets of paper put into a binder called a chart... For the younger members of the group; it spans the era where music was on records, cassettes and CDs.
My kids would kill me if I listed 'who do I discriminate against' in a public internet forum; searchable by past/present/future employers!
But, for the purposes of this discussion, which I'm totally glad is heated/controversial/thought provoking; my dad was racist. In fact, many immigrant parents are... it's part of assimilating into the culture. You figure out which group is favored; which is not; and you try to stay with the favored one. Here's one my dad's favorite sayings, "When the Jews move, so do we. They keep the schools good." I'm sure others on this chat could share equally memorable nuggets from their upbringing.
I have this really good administrator in our center who's really moving us up. She had her second child, and I didn't email her some stuff for a couple of months. She found out later, and asked me why I hadn't asked her to assist, I told her that I was trying to respect her time with a little one. She said, "That's what my husband's for." She shared with me her family structure; which is different than what I expected.
And... I realized I had never stopped emailing one of her colleagues who also had a kid around the same time. Did I mean to do it? No. Did I 'have it out for her?" Actually, she's one of those administrators as a doc you WANT to work for. But I did leave her out because she I turned her into a 'mom' from 'rock star who fixes stuff at work' = unconscious/implicit bias.
Regarding ability to change.. so this week, one of my APPs was not contacted for an internal position she wanted... she feels like she was discriminated by her boss (older woman, children grown but has grandchildren responsibilities) because she just had a child. I think I supported her better because of my prior experience.
What will it look like on a website? I appreciate the scare-factor of the prior post; but PLEASE. Patients don't have your board scores, your resident evaluations; and my organization only keeps a review link on MD web pages with a rating ~ 4/5 or higher. This required training, like all of our other required trainings, will be hidden in some HR area. Which, by the way, is certainly ammunition if someone wants you out!
1) It's been talked quite a bit here that i) Unconscious/implicit may not exist. Part of the prb here is that there seems to be no settled definition. Did you show bias, sure, but why not call that explicit bias or subconscious bias? Many of us here, do not take for granted that implicit bias or microaggressions exist. Again no coherent definition, let alone proof of it's existence has ever been demonstrated ii) even if it does exist we cannot know it through IAT and certainly not through anecdotal experiences. So even if you do have implicit bias, you can't know what those are.
2) Scare tactics? I will "please" back at you. Do you require mandatory classes and social engineering for the above factors? If you are against mandatory training, diversity committees, and things like this then yes we can move on. If you are for those things, then I just want you to be honest about it and consider the real life consequences. There are real life consequences to those evaluations and scores (ie where you go to residency, AOA, etc.). Are you saying, "we're all biased, even in terms of race, a little bit and so let's live in an understanding way." I'm with you 100%, if you are forcing me to take classes to change my things in my unconscious - a) please prove to me those things actually are in my unconscious brain as I assert racism doesn't permeate all the way down to my unconscious brain and b) tell me how on earth YOU AND YOUR CLASSES will change my unconscious brain.
Seriously, as physician,
please reconsider thinking about trying to find unconscious / deep rooted racism you
a priori believe is already in there (how do you know this from you personal anecdotes? There is
NO data) in all your colleagues and then trying to implement changes in that substructure in the brain. I was joking before, but are you going SRS those out or something?
It's already out of hand and in medicine. I'm asking us to stop the mandatory classes and implementation of diversity chairs in each dept (like PENN med school is doing). You can be for unconscious bias, systemic racism, diversity, and be against all the IAT, DIE committees, and mandatory classes.
This is making big news from a government funded organization associated with the Smithsonian as well. I'm sure you have all seen it.
Socially and politically constructed, whiteness is not simply referring to skin color but is an ideology that reinforces power at the expense of others and strengthens systems of oppression. Let’s dig deeper.
nmaahc.si.edu
Edit: Being racist against black people that is so deep that it resides in your unconscious, and as the
JCO Penner paper claims, affects your direct patient care and then someone like you actually admitting that you do have such deep seated racism, is not the same thing as your board score or med school grades. Med school grades and board scores, even if you fail a couple of times and pass, puts you in the top 1-5% of intelligent and highly trained people. This may or may not effect your patient care. What the Penner article and IAT proponents suggest, endorsed by ASCO btw, is that it does directly affect patient care. You actually believe this claim. You admit that you have unconscious bias against certain races. I refute this claim. You may have biases here and there, but I bet it minimally or does not impact the care it gives to your patients. I bet you treat all races, genders, orientations fairly & well. Unless, you admit you don't...
