Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis Case Study: A Process for Understanding and Addressing Bias in Clerkship Grading

Academic Leadership Academy Summer Program: Clerkship Transition Preparation for Underrepresented in Medicine Medical Students

PROBLEM

Enhancing workforce diversity by increasing the recruitment of students who have been historically excluded/underrepresented in medicine (UIM) is critical to addressing healthcare inequities. However, these efforts are inadequate when undertaken without also supporting students' success. The transition to clerkships is an important and often difficult to navigate inflection point in medical training where attention to the specific needs of UIM students is critical.

INTERVENTION

We describe the design, delivery, and three-year evaluation outcomes of a strengths-based program for UIM second year medical students. The program emphasizes three content areas: clinical presentations/clinical reasoning, community building, and surfacing the hidden curriculum. Students are taught and mentored by faculty, residents, and senior students from UIM backgrounds, creating a supportive space for learning.

CONTEXT

The program is offered to all UIM medical students; the centerpiece of the program is an intensive four-day curriculum just before the start of students' second year. Program evaluation with participant focus groups utilized an anti-deficit approach by looking to students as experts in their own learning. During focus groups mid-way through clerkships, students reflected on the program and identified which elements were most helpful to their clerkship transition as well as areas for programmatic improvement.

IMPACT

Students valued key clinical skills learning prior to clerkships, anticipatory guidance on the professional landscape, solidarity and learning with other UIM students and faculty, and the creation of a community of peers. Students noted increased confidence, self-efficacy and comfort when starting clerkships.

LESSONS LEARNED

There is power in learning in a community connected by shared identities and grounded in the strengths of UIM learners, particularly when discussing aspects of the hidden curriculum in clerkships and sharing specific challenges and strategies for success relevant to UIM learners. We learned that while students found unique benefits to preparing for clerkships in a community of UIM students, near peers, and faculty, future programs could be enhanced by pairing this formal intensive curriculum with more longitudinal opportunities for community building, mentoring, and career guidance.

Protocol for the SELECT study: a sequential mixed methods study of the selection of UK medical students into clinical academic training

BACKGROUND

Internationally, there has been a move towards fostering diverse healthcare workforces that are representative of the patient populations they serve. Selection criteria for academic-clinicians often aim to capture skills and attributes that demonstrate both clinical and academic excellence. Currently, it is not known whether the selection criteria for early academic-clinical careers advantage or disadvantage certain ethnic or socioeconomic groups. The UK has a structured route of integrated clinical academic training with entry level training for newly qualified doctors administered through the 'Specialised Foundation Programme' which provides protected time for research within the first two years of postgraduate clinical training. In this study, we aim to identify what selection criteria are used within the UK Specialised Foundation Programme, and how these relate to demographic factors.

METHODS

We will perform a mixed methods study consisting of a document analysis of person specifications and selection criteria used in the 2024 UK Specialised Foundation Programme, and a national cross-sectional survey of current medical students in the UK. We will obtain the person specifications, selection criteria, white space (open ended questions used during shortlisting) and interview questions and mark schemes from each Specialised Unit of Applications via information available on their websites or through Freedom of Information requests. Our survey will collect information relating to demographic data, selection criteria, and perceptions of specialised foundation programme selection.

DISCUSSION

International literature has demonstrated inequity in academic markers used in selection of post-graduate clinicians and that disadvantages caused by selection can compound over time. As such it is important to understand what inequity exists within the selection of early academic-clinicians, as this can help inform more equitable selection practices and help nurture a more diverse academic-clinical workforce.

Disparities in Medical School Clerkship Grades Associated With Sex, Race, and Ethnicity: A Person-Centered Approach

PURPOSE

To determine whether students' self-reported race/ethnicity and sex were associated with grades earned in 7 core clerkships. A person-centered approach was used to group students based on observed clerkship grade patterns. Predictors of group membership and predictive bias by race/ethnicity and sex were investigated.

METHOD

Using data from 6 medical student cohorts at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM), latent class analysis was used to classify students based on clerkship grades. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to investigate if preclerkship measures and student demographic characteristics predicted clerkship performance-level groups. Marginal effects for United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 scores were obtained to assess the predictive validity of the test on group membership by race/ethnicity and sex. Predictive bias was examined by comparing multinomial logistic regression prediction errors across racial/ethnic groups.

RESULTS

Three clerkship performance-level groups emerged from the data: low, middle, and high. Significant predictors of group membership were race/ethnicity, sex, and USMLE Step 1 scores. Black or African American students were more likely (odds ratio [OR] = 4.26) to be low performers than White students. Black or African American (OR = 0.08) and Asian students (OR = 0.41) were less likely to be high performers than White students. Female students (OR = 2.51) were more likely to be high performers than male students. Patterns of prediction errors observed across racial/ethnic groups showed predictive bias when using USMLE Step 1 scores to predict clerkship performance-level groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Disparities in clerkship grades associated with race/ethnicity were found among JHUSOM students, which persisted after controlling for USMLE Step 1 scores, sex, and other preclerkship performance measures. Differential predictive validity of USMLE Step 1 exam scores and systematic error predictions by race/ethnicity show predictive bias when using USMLE Step 1 scores to predict clerkship performance across racial/ethnic groups.

Frontline assessors' opinions about grading committees in a medicine clerkship

BACKGROUND

Collective decision-making by grading committees has been proposed as a strategy to improve the fairness and consistency of grading and summative assessment compared to individual evaluations. In the 2020-2021 academic year, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSM) instituted grading committees in the assessment of third-year medical students on core clerkships, including the Internal Medicine clerkship. We explored how frontline assessors perceive the role of grading committees in the Internal Medicine core clerkship at WUSM and sought to identify challenges that could be addressed in assessor development initiatives.

METHODS

We conducted four semi-structured focus group interviews with resident (n = 6) and faculty (n = 17) volunteers from inpatient and outpatient Internal Medicine clerkship rotations. Transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Participants felt that the transition to a grading committee had benefits and drawbacks for both assessors and students. Grading committees were thought to improve grading fairness and reduce pressure on assessors. However, some participants perceived a loss of responsibility in students' grading. Furthermore, assessors recognized persistent challenges in communicating students' performance via assessment forms and misunderstandings about the new grading process. Interviewees identified a need for more training in formal assessment; however, there was no universally preferred training modality.

CONCLUSIONS

Frontline assessors view the switch from individual graders to a grading committee as beneficial due to a perceived reduction of bias and improvement in grading fairness; however, they report ongoing challenges in the utilization of assessment tools and incomplete understanding of the grading and assessment process.

Race and Gender Bias in Clerkship Grading

Phenomenon: Existing literature, as well as anecdotal evidence, suggests that tiered clinical grading systems may display systematic demographic biases. This study aimed to investigate these potential inequities in-depth. Specifically, this study attempted to address the following gaps in the literature: (1) studying grades actually assigned to students (as opposed to self-reported ones), (2) using longitudinal data over an 8-year period, providing stability of data, (3) analyzing three important, potentially confounding covariates, (4) using a comprehensive multivariate statistical design, and (5) investigating not just the main effects of gender and race, but also their potential interaction. Approach: Participants included 1,905 graduates (985 women, 51.7%) who received the Doctor of Medicine degree between 2014 and 2021. Most of the participants were white (n = 1,310, 68.8%) and about one-fifth were nonwhite (n = 397, 20.8%). There were no reported race data for 10.4% (n = 198). To explore potential differential grading, a two-way multivariate analysis of covariance was employed to examine the impact of race and gender on grades in eight required clerkships, adjusting for prior academic performance. Findings: There were two significant main effects, race and gender, but no interaction effect between gender and race. Women received higher grades on average on all eight clerkships, and white students received higher grades on average on four of the eight clerkships (Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynecology). These relationships held even when accounting for prior performance covariates. Insights: These findings provide additional evidence that tiered grading systems may be subject to systematic demographic biases. It is difficult to tease apart the contributions of various factors to the observed differences in gender and race on clerkship grades, and the interactions that produce these biases may be quite complex. The simplest solution to cut through the tangled web of grading biases may be to move away from a tiered grading system altogether.

Medical student perceptions of assessments of clinical reasoning in a general surgery clerkship

BACKGROUND

Components factoring into general surgery clerkship grades vary by institution, and while evaluators attempt to remain unbiased when evaluating medical student performance, subjectivity and implicit bias remain an issue. Our institution recently implemented a case-based structured oral examination to provide the general surgery clerkship director objective insight into students' clinical reasoning skills. We hypothesized that medical students believe this exam, along with graded clinical documentation and the Observed Standardized Clinical Encounter (OSCE), are fair assessments and increase students' awareness of their clinical reasoning skills.

METHODS

A survey was sent to third-year medical students in the classes of 2023 and 2024 at our institution who had completed their general surgery clerkship. Students rated five grading assessments (i.e., preceptor evaluations, the oral examination, clinical documentation, the OSCE, and the shelf exam) on fairness and the ability of the assessment to give them insight into their clinical reasoning on a five-point Likert scale 1-5 (with 1 = Strongly Agree, 5 = Strongly Disagree).

RESULTS

One hundred and ten of 162 (67.9%) students responded to the survey. The shelf examination was the most highly regarded assessment tool followed by the oral examination. Seventy-three percent agreed or strongly agreed that the oral exam was a fair assessment, and 80% agreed or strongly agreed that it gave them insight into their clinical reasoning skills. Alternatively, only 41.8% of students agreed or strongly agreed that preceptor evaluations were fair assessments and 42.7% agreed or strongly agreed that it gave them insight into their clinical reasoning.

CONCLUSIONS

Third-year medical students on a general surgery clerkship favor the shelf examination and a case-based oral examination over other assessment tools regarding fairness and perception of their clinical reasoning. This type of examination can provide general surgery clerkship directors with additional objective data to assess medical students more fairly and improve students' clinical reasoning.

Current practices and perspectives on clerkship grading in obstetrics and gynecology

BACKGROUND

Clerkship grades in obstetrics and gynecology play an increasingly important role in the competitive application process to residency programs. An analysis of clerkship grading practices has not been queried in the past 2 decades in our specialty.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to investigate obstetrics and gynecology clerkship directors' practices and perspectives in grading.

STUDY DESIGN

A 12-item electronic survey was developed and distributed to clerkship directors with active memberships in the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

RESULTS

A total of 174 of 236 clerkship directors responded to the survey (a response rate of 73.7%). Respondents reported various grading systems with the fewest (20/173 [11.6%]) using a 2-tiered or pass or fail system and the most (72/173 [41.6%]) using a 4-tiered system. Nearly one-third of clerkship directors (57/163 [35.0%]) used a National Board of Medical Examiners subject examination score threshold to achieve the highest grade. Approximately 45 of 151 clerkship directors (30.0%) had grading committees. Exactly half of the clerkship directors (87/174 [50.0%]) reported requiring unconscious bias training for faculty who assess students. In addition, some responded that students from groups underrepresented in medicine (50/173 [28.9%]) and introverted students (105/173 [60.7%]) received lower evaluations. Finally, 65 of 173 clerkship directors (37.6%) agreed that grades should be pass or fail.

CONCLUSION

Considerable heterogeneity exists in obstetrics and gynecology clerkship directors' practices and perspectives in grading. Strategies to mitigate inequities and improve the reliability of grading include the elimination of a subject examination score threshold to achieve the highest grade and the implementation of both unconscious bias training and grading committees.

Developing Evidence for Equitable Assessment Characteristics Based on Clinical Learner Preferences Using Discrete Choice Experiments

PURPOSE

Medical education is only beginning to explore the factors that contribute to equitable assessment in clinical settings. Increasing knowledge about equitable assessment ensures a quality medical education experience that produces an excellent, diverse physician workforce equipped to address the health care disparities facing patients and communities. Through the lens of the Anti-Deficit Achievement framework, the authors aimed to obtain evidence for a model for equitable assessment in clinical training.

METHOD

A discrete choice experiment approach was used which included an instrument with 6 attributes each at 2 levels to reveal learner preferences for the inclusion of each attribute in equitable assessment. Self-identified underrepresented in medicine (UIM) and not underrepresented in medicine (non-UIM) (N = 306) fourth-year medical students and senior residents in medicine, pediatrics, and surgery at 9 institutions across the United States completed the instrument. A mixed-effects logit model was used to determine attributes learners valued most.

RESULTS

Participants valued the inclusion of all assessment attributes provided except for peer comparison. The most valued attribute of an equitable assessment was how learner identity, background, and trajectory were appreciated by clinical supervisors. The next most valued attributes were assessment of growth, supervisor bias training, narrative assessments, and assessment of learner's patient care, with participants willing to trade off any of the attributes to get several others. There were no significant differences in value placed on assessment attributes between UIM and non-UIM learners. Residents valued clinical supervisors valuing learner identity, background, and trajectory and clinical supervisor bias training more so than medical students.

CONCLUSIONS

This study offers support for the components of an antideficit-focused model for equity in assessment and informs efforts to promote UIM learner success and guide equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives in medical education.

Using a Virtual Simulation Workshop to Teach Interns Evidence-Based Feedback Techniques

Background The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires residents to demonstrate competence in integrating feedback into their daily practice. With the shift to virtual medical education during the pandemic, the need for new skills in delivering effective feedback through virtual media has emerged. Methodology This study aimed to assess the feasibility of a virtual bootcamp for interns, utilizing virtual simulation workshops to teach effective feedback skills. The curriculum employed a situated learning-guided participation framework. Virtual standardized students participated, and interns engaged in activities such as providing virtual feedback, completing self-assessments, and receiving instruction on feedback principles, including the one-minute preceptor's five micro-skills. Interns repeated the feedback process, with virtual students providing assessments. Data were collected from 105 incoming interns at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in June 2021 and June 2022, using Zoom® as the online platform. Results Competency assessments revealed a significant post-training increase in proficiency/expert milestones (88% versus 47%, p = 0.007). Interns' self-assessments also significantly improved (18.02 versus 16.74, p = 0.001), particularly for previously trained interns (18.27 versus 16.7). Non-primary care interns outperformed primary care interns in milestone scores. The majority of interns (80%) reported valuable learning experiences during the workshop, with 70% expressing confidence in using the one-minute preceptor technique during residency. The one-minute preceptor step "reinforce what was right" was deemed the easiest, while "obtain commitment" and "explore emotional reaction" presented significant challenges. Conclusions This study demonstrates the potential of virtual workshops to enhance intern competency in delivering effective feedback through formal processes and the one-minute preceptor. These virtual approaches offer innovative alternatives to in-person teaching, enabling evaluation at higher levels of Miller's pyramid of clinical competence.

Student and Teacher Perspectives on Equity in Clinical Feedback: A Qualitative Study Using a Critical Race Theory Lens

PURPOSE

The authors aimed to gain a better understanding of students' and teachers' perspectives about whether clinical clerkship feedback is provided equitably irrespective of a student's race/ethnicity.

METHOD

A secondary analysis of existing interview data was conducted, focusing on racial/ethnic disparities in clinical grading. Data had been acquired from 29 students and 30 teachers at 3 U.S. medical schools. The authors performed secondary coding on all 59 transcripts, writing memos focused on statements related to aspects of feedback equity and developing a template for coding students' and teachers' observations and descriptions specific to clinical feedback. Using the template, memos were coded, and thematic categories emerged describing perspectives on clinical feedback.

RESULTS

Forty-eight (22 teachers and 26 students) participants' transcripts provided narratives about feedback. Both student and teacher narratives described how students who are racially/ethnically underrepresented in medicine may receive less helpful formative clinical feedback needed for professional development. Thematic analysis of narratives yielded 3 themes related to feedback inequities: 1) teachers' racial/ethnic biases influence the feedback they provide students, 2) teachers have limited skill sets to provide equitable feedback, and 3) racial/ethnic inequities in the clinical learning environment shape clinical and feedback experiences.

CONCLUSIONS

Narratives indicated that both students and teachers perceived racial/ethnic inequities in clinical feedback. Teacher- and learning environment-related factors influenced these racial/ethnic inequities. These results can inform medical education's efforts to mitigate biases in the learning environment and provide equitable feedback to ensure every student has what they need to develop into the competent physician they aspire to be.

"My Assessments Are Biased!" Measurement and Sociocultural Approaches to Achieve Fairness in Assessment in Medical Education

Assessing learners is foundational to their training and developmental growth throughout the medical education continuum. However, growing evidence shows the prevalence and impact of harmful bias in assessments in medical education, accelerating the urgency to identify solutions. Assessment bias presents a critical problem for all stages of learning and the broader educational system. Bias poses significant challenges to learners, disrupts the learning environment, and threatens the pathway and transition of learners into health professionals. While the topic of assessment bias has been examined within the context of measurement literature, limited guidance and solutions exist for learners in medical education, particularly in the clinical environment. This article presents an overview of assessment bias, focusing on clinical learners. A definition of bias and its manifestations in assessments are presented. Consequences of assessment bias are discussed within the contexts of validity and fairness and their impact on learners, patients/caregivers, and the broader field of medicine. Messick's unified validity framework is used to contextualize assessment bias; in addition, perspectives from sociocultural contexts are incorporated into the discussion to elaborate the nuanced implications in the clinical training environment. Discussions of these topics are conceptualized within the literature and the interventions used to date. The article concludes with practical recommendations to overcome bias and to develop an ideal assessment system. Recommendations address articulating values to guide assessment, designing assessment to foster learning and outcomes, attending to assessment procedures, promoting continuous quality improvement of assessment, and fostering equitable learning and assessment environments.

Strategies for Advancing Equity in Frontline Clinical Assessment

Educational equity in medicine cannot be achieved without addressing assessment bias. Assessment bias in health professions education is prevalent and has extensive implications for learners and, ultimately, the health care system. Medical schools and educators desire to minimize assessment bias, but there is no current consensus on effective approaches. Frontline teaching faculty have the opportunity to mitigate bias in clinical assessment in real time. Based on their experiences as educators, the authors created a case study about a student to illustrate ways bias affects learner assessment. In this paper, the authors use their case study to provide faculty with evidence-based approaches to mitigate bias and promote equity in clinical assessment. They focus on 3 components of equity in assessment: contextual equity, intrinsic equity, and instrumental equity. To address contextual equity, or the environment in which learners are assessed, the authors recommend building a learning environment that promotes equity and psychological safety, understanding the learners' contexts, and undertaking implicit bias training. Intrinsic equity, centered on the tools and practices used during assessment, can be promoted by using competency-based, structured assessment methods and employing frequent, direct observation to assess multiple domains. Instrumental equity, focused on communication and how assessments are used, includes specific, actionable feedback to support growth and use of competency-based narrative descriptors in assessments. Using these strategies, frontline clinical faculty members can actively promote equity in assessment and support the growth of a diverse health care workforce.

Understanding and Addressing Bias in Grading: Progress at Washington University School of Medicine

In 2020, the authors published work examining disparities in clerkship grading and found students who identify as White were more likely to receive honors grades compared with students from races/ethnicities traditionally underrepresented in medicine. Through a quality improvement approach, the authors identified the following 6 areas where improvements could mitigate grading disparities and, therefore, put processes in place to: ensure equitable access to examination preparation resources, change student assessment, develop medical student curriculum interventions, improve the learning environment, change house staff and faculty recruitment and retention practices, and provide ongoing program evaluation and continuous quality improvement processes to monitor for success. While the authors cannot yet be sure that they have achieved their goal of promoting equity in grading, they believe this evidence-based, multipronged intervention is a clear step in the right direction and encourage other schools to consider a similar approach to tackling this critically important problem at their own institutions.

Fixing a Broken Clerkship Assessment Process: Reflections on Objectivity and Equity Following the USMLE Step 1 Change to Pass/Fail

Clerkship grading is a core feature of evaluation for medical students' skills as physicians and is considered by most residency program directors to be an indicator of future performance and success. With the transition of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 score to pass/fail, there will likely be even greater reliance on clerkship grades, which raises several important issues that need to be urgently addressed. This article details the current landscape of clerkship grading and the systemic discrepancies in assessment and allocation of honors. The authors examine not only objectivity and fairness in clerkship grading but also the reliability of clerkship grading in predicting residency performance and the potential benefits and drawbacks to adoption of a pass/fail clinical clerkship grading system. In the promotion of a more fair and equitable residency selection process, there must be standardization of grading systems with consideration of explicit grading criteria, grading committees, and/or structured education of evaluators and assessors regarding implicit bias. In addition, greater adherence and enforcement of transparency in grade distributions in the Medical Student Performance Evaluation is needed. These changes have the potential to level the playing field, foster equitable comparisons, and ultimately add more fairness to the residency selection process.

Racial and Ethnic Bias in Medical School Clinical Grading: A Review

OBJECTIVE

Improving diversity in healthcare is a widely recognized national goal. The diversity of medical student matriculants has increased, yet this trend is not seen in the composition of competitive residency programs. In this review, we examine racial and ethnic disparities in medical student grading during clinical years and explore the consequences of how this may exclude minority students from accessing competitive residency positions.

DESIGN

Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and ERIC databases using variations of the terms "race," "ethnicity," "clerkship," "rotation," "grade," "evaluation", or "shelf exam." Of 391 references found using the criteria, 29 were related to clinical grading and race/ethnicity and included in the review. The GRADE criteria were used to determine the quality of evidence.

SETTING

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore MD.

RESULTS

Five studies examining a total of 107,687 students from up to 113 different schools found racial minority students receive significantly fewer Honors grades in core clerkships compared to White students. Three studies examining 94,814 medical student evaluations from up to 130 different schools found significant disparities in the wording of written clerkship evaluations based on race and/or ethnicity.

CONCLUSIONS

A large body of evidence suggests the presence of racial bias in subjective clinical grading and written clerkship evaluations of medical students. Grading disparities can disadvantage minority students when applying to competitive residency programs and may contribute to a lack of diversity in these fields. As low minority representation has a negative impact on patient care and research advancement, strategies to resolve this issue must be further explored.

Unconscious Bias

Unconscious biases (also known as implicit biases) are involuntary stereotypes or attitudes held about certain groups of people that may influence our behaviors, understandings, and actions, often with unintended detrimental consequences. Implicit bias appears in multiple facets of medical education, training, and promotion with negative effects on diversity and equity efforts. Notable health disparities exist among minority groups in the United States, which may partly be attributable to unconscious biases. Although there is little evidence supporting the effectiveness of current bias/diversity training programming, standardization and blinding may be helpful, evidence-based methods to reduce implicit bias.

Building a student learning-focused assessment and grading system in dental school: One school's experience

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES

As health professions education moves toward competency-based education, there has been increased focus on the structure of assessment systems that support student competency development and learning. This has been buoyed by a growing body of research supporting assessment for learning processes to promote student growth and learning rather than relying on assessment systems primarily to measure performance. This paper presents the rationale and evidence for moving to an assessment for learning system and the results of a quasi-experimental interrupted time series study using data from 2015 to 2022 to evaluate the impacts of these changes.

METHODS

Columbia University College of Dental Medicine faculty voted to implement assessment for learning system changes beginning in 2017 with the graduating class of 2021. These changes included moving from using a grading system for didactic courses with Honors, Pass, and Fail as available grades to a grading system with only Pass and Fail as available grades, as well as creating synthesis and assessment weeks, weekly problem sets, post-exam review sessions, exam remediation opportunities, and formative progress exams throughout the curriculum. The revised assessment and grading system changes were communicated to residency program directors, and programmatic competency data about student performance across the curriculum were shared with programs in Dean's Letters.

RESULTS

Once assessment system changes were implemented, it was found that student exam failure rates were lower, course exam scores were the same or higher, and performance on board exams improved compared to the national average. Students reported positive perceptions with regard to well-being and learning climate that they associated with the adoption of Pass/Fail grading. Match outcomes, including student satisfaction and program director ratings, have remained consistently positive.

CONCLUSION

As dental educators, our goal is to nurture students to become life-long learners. Adopting a grading structure that is Pass/Fail and an assessment system that fosters learning allows students to shape learning practices that favor long-term retention and application of information, also enhancing the learning environment and student well-being. These system changes may also facilitate the inclusion and support of students whose backgrounds are underrepresented in dentistry.

The time is now: addressing implicit bias in obstetrics and gynecology education

Obstetrician-gynecologists can improve the learning environment and patient care by addressing implicit bias. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that racial and gender-based discrimination is woven into medical education, formal curricula, patient-provider-trainee interactions in the clinical workspace, and all aspects of learner assessment. Implicit bias negatively affects learners in every space. Strategies to address implicit bias at the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and structural level to improve the well-being of learners and patients are needed. The authors review an approach to addressing implicit bias in obstetrics and gynecology education, which includes: (1) curricular design using an educational framework of antiracism and social justice theories, (2) bias awareness and management pedagogy throughout the curriculum, (3) elimination of stereotypical patient descriptions from syllabi and examination questions, and (4) critical review of epidemiology and evidence-based medicine for underlying assumptions based on discriminatory practices or structural racism that unintentionally reinforce stereotypes and bias. The movement toward competency-based medical education and holistic evaluations may result in decreased bias in learner assessment. Educators may wish to monitor grades and narratives for bias as a form of continuous educational equity improvement. Given that practicing physicians may have little training in this area, faculty development efforts in bias awareness and mitigation strategies may have significant impact on learner well-being.

Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Clerkship Grading: Perspectives of Students and Teachers

PURPOSE

Racial/ethnic disparities exist in clinical clerkship grading, yet little is known about medical student and faculty perspectives on why these disparities occur. This study explored what happens during clerkships that might explain grading disparities.

METHOD

Medical students and clerkship teachers at 3 U.S. medical schools completed a demographic survey and semistructured interview. The constant comparative method was used to analyze transcripts by inductively developing codes; grouping codes in categories; and refining codes, descriptions, and group assignments to identify themes. Interpretations of and relationships among themes were iteratively discussed to develop a grounded theory.

RESULTS

Fifty-nine participants (29 medical students, 30 teachers [28 clinical faculty, 2 residents]) were interviewed in 2020. The Social Milieu of Medical Education (relationships, fit, opportunities, and judgments in the clinical-learning setting) was the organizing theme, influenced by 5 additional themes: Societal Influence (experiences in society), Students' Characteristics and Background (personal characteristics and experiences outside medical school), Assessment Processes (collection of student performance data and how data inform grades), Learning Environment (resources available and messaging within the clinical setting), and Students' Interactions and Reactions (interactions with and reactions to peers and teachers). The grounded theory highlights complex, multilayered aspects of how the social milieu of medical education is shaped by and shapes students' experiences, relationships, and clerkship assessments and promotes clerkship-grading disparities.

CONCLUSIONS

Mitigating clerkship-grading disparities will require intervening on interrelated, contextual factors to provide equitable opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds and with varying styles of engagement in clinical-learning settings, along with attending to modifying assessment processes.

Amplifying the Student Voice: Medical Student Perceptions of AΩA

BACKGROUND

Recent literature has suggested racial disparities in Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (AΩA) selection and raised concerns about its effects on the learning environment. Internal reviews at multiple institutions have led to changes in selection practices or suspension of student chapters; in October 2020, the national AΩA organization provided guidance to address these concerns.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to better understand student opinions of AΩA.

DESIGN

An anonymous survey using both multiple response option and free response questions.

PARTICIPANTS

Medical students at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

MAIN MEASURES

Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were used to examine predictors of student opinion towards AΩA. Free responses were analyzed by two independent coders to identify key themes.

KEY RESULTS

In total, 70% of the student body (n = 547) completed the survey. Sixty-three percent had a negative opinion of AΩA, and 57% felt AΩA should not exist at the student level. Thirteen percent believed AΩA membership appropriately reflects the student body; 8% thought selection processes were fair. On multivariate analysis, negative predictors of a student's preference to continue AΩA at the student level included belief that AΩA membership does not currently mirror class composition (OR: 0.45, [95% CI: 0.23-0.89]) and that AΩA selection processes were unfair (OR: 0.20 [0.08-0.47]). Self-perception as not competitive for AΩA selection was also a negative predictor (OR: 0.44 [0.22-0.88]). Major qualitative themes included equity, impact on the learning environment, transparency, and positive aspects of AΩA.

CONCLUSIONS

This single-institution survey demonstrated significant student concerns regarding AΩA selection fairness and effects on the learning environment. Many critiques extended beyond AΩA itself, instead focusing on the perceived magnification of existing disparities in the learning environment. As the national conversation about AΩA continues, engaging student voices in the discussion is critical.

Standardized oral examinations allow for assessment of medical student clinical knowledge and decrease racial grading differences in a surgery clerkship

BACKGROUND

Oral examinations are not consistently included in third-year medical student clerkships. When included, they are often unstructured, leaving room for variations in difficulty or scoring. Previous research has demonstrated differences in clinical grade achievement, with underrepresented in medicine students receiving significantly lower grades than White students.

METHODS

We designed a structured oral examination for third-year medical students on the surgery clerkship. Students completed 2 oral examination scenarios and were evaluated on their ability to complete a history and diagnostic workup, interpret laboratory and imaging results, and devise a treatment plan. Scores from our examination were compared to previous, unstructured oral examination scores and to student demographics. Students and faculty were surveyed regarding their experience.

RESULTS

Third-year medical students demonstrated strong knowledge of multiple surgical diseases. The greatest number of errors occurred in treatment planning (P < .001). Third-year medical students receiving honors clerkship grades achieved higher percentages of correct items on their oral examination. (94.8% vs 90.4%) (P = .02). Evaluation of prior unstructured oral examinations found underrepresented in medicine students received lower scores than White students (P = .04). After implementation of our structured examination, no difference was seen between the scores of underrepresented in medicine and White students (P = .99).

CONCLUSION

We implemented a standardized oral examination for third-year medical students on the surgery clerkship with student and faculty satisfaction and demonstrated the ability to determine domains of knowledge weakness. The application of our structured oral examination helped to address nonspecific grading practices and eliminate oral examination grade differences between underrepresented in medicine and White students.

Excellence in medical training: developing talent-not sorting it

Many medical schools have reconsidered or eliminated clerkship grades and honor society memberships. National testing organizations announced plans to eliminate numerical scoring for the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 in favor of pass/fail results. These changes have led some faculty to wonder: "How will we recognize and reward excellence?" Excellence in undergraduate medical education has long been defined by high grades, top test scores, honor society memberships, and publication records. However, this model of learner excellence is misaligned with how students learn or what society values. This accolade-driven view of excellence is perpetuated by assessments that are based on gestalt impressions influenced by similarity between evaluators and students, and assessments that are often restricted to a limited number of traditional skill domains. To achieve a new model of learner excellence that values the trainee's achievement, growth, and responsiveness to feedback across multiple domains, we must envision a new model of teacher excellence. Such teachers would have a growth mindset toward assessing competencies and learning new competencies. Actualizing true learner excellence will require teachers to change from evaluators who conduct assessments of learning to coaches who do assessment for learning. Schools will also need to establish policies and structures that foster a culture that supports this change. In this new paradigm, a teacher's core duty is to develop talent rather than sort it.

While You Don’t See Color, I See Bias: Identifying Barriers in Access to Graduate Medical Education Training

There is a need to acknowledge and address issues of implicit and explicit bias within medical education. These biases can impact standardized test questions and scores, evaluations of clinical performance, and subsequent letters of recommendation, all of which can affect the selection of diverse candidates advancing through medical training. Biased behavior toward trainees can negatively impact their learning environment and career trajectory. This article outlines key definitions related to bias and discusses the ways in which bias potentially impacts selection and entry into Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellowship training. Finally, we will describe some ways to mitigate bias within the fellowship selection process and training programs.

Diversity Is Not Enough: Advancing a Framework for Antiracism in Medical Education

Medical students, residents, and faculty have begun to examine and grapple with the legacy and persistence of structural racism in academic medicine in the United States. Until recently, the discourse and solutions have largely focused on augmenting diversity across the medical education continuum through increased numbers of learners from groups underrepresented in medicine (UIM). Despite deliberate measures implemented by medical schools, residency programs, academic institutions, and national organizations, meaningful growth in diversity has not been attained. To the contrary, the UIM representation among medical trainees has declined or remained below the representation in the general population. Inequities continue to be observed in multiple domains of medical education, including grading, admission to honor societies, and extracurricular obligations. These inequities, alongside learners' experiences and calls for action, led the authors to conclude that augmenting diversity is necessary but insufficient to achieve equity in the learning environment. In this article, the authors advance a 4-step framework, built on established principles and practices of antiracism, to dismantle structural racism in medical education. They ground each step of the framework in the concepts and skills familiar to medical educators. By drawing parallels with clinical reasoning, medical error, continuous quality improvement, the growth mindset, and adaptive expertise, the authors show how learners, faculty, and academic leaders can implement the framework's 4 steps-see, name, understand, and act-to shift the paradigm from a goal of diversity to a stance of antiracism in medical education.

(Re)producing "Whiteness" in Health Care: A Spatial Analysis of the Critical Literature on the Integration of Internationally Educated Health Care Professionals in the Canadian Workforce

PURPOSE

There is a gap in the literature to understand how professionalizing systems intersect with socioeconomic and political realities such as globalization to (re)produce social inequities between those trained locally and those trained abroad. In this critical review, the question of how systemic racism is reproduced in health care is addressed.

METHOD

Electronic databases and nontraditional avenues for searching literature such as reference chaining and discussions with experts were employed to build an archive of texts related to integration of internationally educated health care professionals (IEHPs) into the workforce. Data related to workplace racialization were sought out, particularly those that used antiracist and postcolonial approaches. Rather than an exhaustive summary of the data, a critical review contributes to theory building and a spatial analysis was overlayed on the critical literature of IEHP integration to conceptualize the material effects of the convergence of globalization and professional systems.

RESULTS

The critical review suggests that professions maintain their value and social status through discourses of "Canadianness" that maintain the homogeneity of professional spaces through social closure mechanisms of credential nonrecognition and resocialization. Power relations are maintained through mechanisms of workplace racialization/spatialization and surveillance which operate through discourses of "foreign-trainedness."

CONCLUSIONS

Movement of professionals supports a professional system that on the surface values diversity while maintaining its social status and power through the (re)production of the discourse of "Whiteness." The analysis shows how in the process domestic graduates are emplaced as the "rightful" citizens of professional paces while IEHPs are marginalized in the workforce.

Curriculum renewal in the time of COVID-19: The Washington University School of Medicine Story

Washington University School of Medicine began a curriculum renewal process in 2017 with a goal of implementing the Gateway Curriculum in 2020. In this article, we describe the vision of this curriculum and the infrastructure that was built to support it. We also describe the impact of COVID‐19 on the legacy curriculum and the Gateway Curriculum as well as the lessons learned to date.

Medical Students' Reflections on the Recent Changes to the USMLE Step Exams

The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) consists of Step 1, Step 2 Clinical Knowledge, Step 2 Clinical Skills, and Step 3. To be licensed to practice medicine in the United States, medical students must pass all parts of the USMLE. However, in addition to that pass/fail grade, students are currently given a numerical score for Step 1, Step 2 Clinical Knowledge, and Step 3. Residency program directors have come to use the Step 1 score to efficiently screen a growing number of residency applicants. As a result, a deleterious environment in undergraduate medical education has been created, given the importance of Step 1 to medical students matching to their preferred residency program. It was announced in February 2020 that the score-reporting protocol for Step 1 would be changed from a 3-digit numerical score to pass/fail only, beginning no earlier than January 1, 2022. This decision will undoubtedly impact medical students, medical schools, and residency program directors. Here, the authors discuss the impact that the change to Step 1 scoring will have on these key stakeholder groups, from their perspective as students at MD-granting medical schools in the United States. They also call attention to outstanding issues with the USMLE that must be addressed to improve undergraduate medical education for all stakeholders, and they offer advice for further improvements to the residency application process.