Implicit Bias Insults Physicians, Harms Care
Medical organizations should be promoting policies and legislation that allows physicians to optimally use their training and experience, and protects the physician-patient relationship. Unfortunately, most new policies and laws go the other direction by restricting physicians or placing mandates on them.
Michigan exemplified this problem recently when Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs enacted new rules requiring all health care professionals to undergo implicit bias training to obtain or retain their licenses to practice in Michigan.
"Today's new training guidelines will help us mitigate the impacts of implicit bias and ensure every patient in Michigan receives the best possible care," Whitmer said. "These rules will save lives and improve health outcomes for generations of Michiganders, especially those who have been historically and systemically discriminated against.”
What’s implicit in this new rule and Whitmer’s comments is the assumption that physicians “systemically” discriminate against minorities. This is wrong and insulting.
From the Governor’s press release: “Today's announcement caps nearly 11 months of collaboration and engagement with licensees, insurance providers, hospitals, health care associations, legislators, state agencies, higher education, and community and advocacy groups.”
Health care associations? What health care associations support the underlying assumption that physicians are racist and the profession itself is systemically bias? What kind of health care associations support mandated training that has nothing whatsoever to do with improving the delivery and practice of health care?
This is the exact wrong way to handle any biases on the part of individual physicians, said Dr. Julio Gonzalez, President of the United States Medical Association.
“We already have laws at multiple levels of government that provide for aggressive punishment or sanctions if a physician ever conducts his practice in a racist or biased way. Those laws are the correct approach against racial bias by any particular individual,” Dr. Gonzalez said. “However, to imply that physicians are systemically biased and that their decisions are inherently affected by that bias is destructive to the medical profession and destructive to the sanctity of the physician patient relationship.”
No physician organization should tolerate such an abuse of the highest standards the medical profession is expected to maintain for all human life — let alone be actively supporting them, Gonzalez said.
The United States Medical Association supports and and will fight for physician freedoms to practice the medicine that they — not politicians — are trained to practice. The USMA is passionate about representing American physician’s freedom, and the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship.
The United States Medical Association is a group of physicians and others who have seen firsthand the shifting medical landscape and the lack of any real representation — sometimes even representation working against our interests by major organizations that are supposed to be watching out for us — such as this egregious law in Michigan. Those organizations are not watching out for physicians, but the USMA will.
To get involved with and support the USMA, visit us at www.usmedicalassociation.org, sign up for our emails and newsletters, or contact us at info@usmedicalassociation.org or by calling (941) 441-0310.
Remember, the USMA will be the House that Doctors Built, and it will not become a reality without your help. Please visit the United States Medical Association website and consider making a contribution $500, $1,000, or $5,000 to help build this sorely needed organization.
With your help, the USMA has no choice but to succeed. All we need to do is share in carrying the load. Please consider contributing. We look forward to quickly becoming your go-to organization in support of your profession.