Saint Louis University School of Medicine is concerned with, not only training physicians to be good doctors, but we are also invested in reducing health care disparity and improving cultural competence among our students faculty, and allied health trainees.
“To this end our current incoming first year medical school class has been selected and represents the most diverse class in the history of the school of medicine, with nearly 16percent of the incoming class as African American, Latino, and Native American,” said Michael Railey, M.D., associate dean of Multicultural Affairs at Saint Louis University school of Medicine.
We continue to honor diversity and inclusion with our efforts, but particularly at the med school where we celebrate the Dr. John Gladney diversity awards dinner yearly. The late Dr. Gladney was the first African American and in fact, the only in St. Louis University history to become a clinical chairperson of a major clinical academic department (Otolaryngology) at SLU medical school.
During the spring Gladney awards in April, fourth-year medical students were recognized for outstanding work in underserved areas of the St. Louis community, including Tiffany Adams, Talia Coney, Candace Smith, Charonn Woods and Gladney award winner Jeremy Goss – a cofounder of the mobile farmer’s market, St. Louis MetroMarket.
Guest speaker Kira Hudson Banks, associate professor of Psychology at Saint Louis University, spoke to Gladney attendees about unconscious bias.
“In the interactions we have with each other, if we are not honest with ourselves about the assumptions we make about each other, can drive our behavior in ways that can be problematic, and in some cases, could be life or death,” Hudson Banks said.
She said unconscious bias is hidden biases that are capable of guiding a person’s behavior unknowingly, and the biases are often rigid and inflexible and can be positive or negative.
“It is often based on limited evidence; maybe even limited interaction with people of different backgrounds,” she explained. It can also shape norms and expectations of people, particularly social biases, and people have to work to put in place counter-stereotypical images to overcome the bias.
“Research actually shows that it’s not so much the negative biases that we need to be concerned about … the most pernicious type of bias is not the bias toward people who are different from me, but the favor that I give people who are like me,” Hudson Banks explained.
To move beyond unconscious bias, Hudson Banks said, we have to think beyond simple awareness.
“It’s about developing the awareness, gaining knowledge, and then developing the skills that you will be able to accurately apply,” she said. “To be fully competent, we need to be the ones perpetuating a climate of inclusion, and that includes deep learning, deep reflecting and committed action over time.”
Hudson Banks said she was invited by Dr. Stuart Slavin, associate dean for curriculum at SLU School of Medicine to work with him and first year medical students on how to integrate and immerse ideas around unconscious bias early on.
“By having more diverse physician classes and particularly larger admissions of African Americans into training programs, communities can be seen eventually by more people who look like them and have shared pathways of cultural experiences,” Dr. Railey added. “Many of these students graduate from medical school and elect to stay on in the metropolitan region to become practicing physicians.”
