Joe W. Bowers Jr. and Edward Henderson | California Black Media
A group of doctors have filed a lawsuit against the Medical Board of California to halt a state requirement that mandates physicians study how implicit biases, including racial preconceptions, affect how they treat patients.
Assembly Bill (AB) 241, a law passed in 2019, requires medical professionals to study implicit bias as part of the 50 hours of continuing education required every two years for licenses.
The law states that “evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in health care are remarkably consistent,” noting that Black women are “three to four times more likely than White women” to die from pregnancy-related causes. Black patients “often are prescribed less pain medication than White patients who present the same complaints.”
Black patients with heart symptoms are referred for advanced cardiovascular procedures less often than white patients with the same symptoms.
The plaintiffs in the suit are Dr. Marilyn Singleton, a Black anesthesiologist, Dr. Azadeh Khatibi, an ophthalmologist, and a Virginia nonprofit called Do No Harm.
“I reject the unscientific accusation that people are defined by their race, not by their individual beliefs and choices,” Dr. Singleton wrote in a Washington Post opinion. “When we all took our oath to ‘first, do no harm’ we meant it, and we live it. I can’t imagine spending my entire career thinking my peers can’t uphold that oath without constant racial reeducation.”