Karen Kelly-Blake, PhD Assistant Professor
Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences
Department of Medicine
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
Libby Bogdan-Lovis, MA Assistant Director
Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
Over the past century US medical workforce demographics have shifted. Moving away from a white male dominated profession, there is a welcomed push towards increasing gender, ethnic, racial and linguistic representation. Commonly, that push is linked to notions of desirable doctor/patient identity matching - described here as “concordance.” That demographic shift is accompanied by policy initiatives and rhetoric shaping the professional futures of Native American, African American, and Latino underrepresented minority (URM) physicians. Do these policy initiatives carry social costs that inadvertently influence URM’s futures in the medical workforce? This analysis considers the nature of medical workforce policy strategies. Findings suggest that selectively placing service expectations not similarly placed on their non-minority physician colleagues along with unexamined assumptions of racial/ethnic concordance between patient and physician may place an undue burden on URMs.
This lecture was part of the 2016-2017 Bioethics Brownbag & Webinar Series, presented by the
Center for Ethics.