Medical Student Bias
Conditions
Brief summary
The effect of medical humanities on medical student bias and clinical management is unclear. This study characterized medical student attitudes toward obese individuals and whether reading a play employing empathic characters can modulate negative reactions.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALMedical Lecture
BEHAVIORALDramatic Reading
Sponsors
The Arnold P. Gold Foundation
University of California, Davis
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 99 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* medical student at UC Davis, UC Irvine, or Mayo Medical School
Exclusion criteria
* none
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Explicit fat bias | four months | Assessment of conscious bias against fat people (unit of measure from 11 to 99). |
| implicit fat bias | four months | Measurement using the implicit association test (IAT) with scores from -2.0 to +2.0. |
| empathy scale | four months | Score of Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) from 20 to 180. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Patient-Centered Care | four months | Open-ended question on the clinical management of an asymptomatic, obese, elderly woman who is otherwise healthy, with coding for a response that is either patient-centered (ie: asking patient preferences and goals) or prescriptive (ie: telling the patient to diet and/or exercise). |
| Appraisal of obesity | four months | An open-ended question asking participants whether they felt obesity was primarily an issue of discrimination (ie: civil rights) or a public health concern (ie: medical). |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed