The Impact of Unconscious Bias in Healthcare and Diagnostic Imaging
摘要
Unconscious bias acts at the subconscious level and involves feelings, perceptions, and stereotypes deriving from imprints, previous experiences, and internalized associations between some qualities and specific categories/characteristics, including gender, race, and age, and still affects the healthcare environment at different levels. Indeed, patients still suffer from gender, race, and age discrimination from physicians and the medical system, with a significant impact on treatment and outcome. At the same time, underrepresented minority physicians are mistreated by patients and colleagues. Radiology is also affected by such biases, and attention has to be paid to growing applications of artificial intelligence in this field, which may be affected by various biases. Despite important achievements in the last decades, the medical field still suffers from severe biases, and much effort has to be devoted to dismantling them, establishing and supporting educational and network initiatives.