In a little over a month, I will have completed my Masters in Public Health (MPH). Time truly flew by. I am grateful for meeting inspiring peers invested in addressing the top public health issues of our time and for getting first-hand exposure to policymaking at the state and national level. I am also appreciative of having the time and space to critically think about the pervasiveness of bias in medicine and how this, too, can be framed as a pressing public health issue.
This past fall, a med school classmate and I launched Systemic Disease, an online platform seeking to raise awareness about the pervasiveness of bias in medicine and facilitate student advocacy efforts. As healthcare providers-in-training, we recognize that openly discussing bias is a crucial first step to counter it. Everyone holds implicit biases that can cause us to make automatic judgments without the intention to harm. Since such bias has been shown to adversely impact the patients we seek to serve, it is vital to begin identifying these biases within ourselves and others. Only then can we prevent such biases from interfering with our clinical decisions and behaviors with colleagues, students, and others.
Read the full article originally published on AAMC’s Aspiring Docs Diaries
Tehreem Rehman, MD MPH 