I Wasn't Trained for This: Practical Strategies to Address Bias in the Clinical Learning Environment

Clerkship directors (juggle many roles. Managing issues related to bias in the clinical learning environment (CLE) is a sensitive area that, often, clerkship directors are neither prepared for nor directly trained in addressing.

Medical students encounter implicit and explicit bias from patients, peers, hospital staff, residents, and faculty, and many events go unreported. To foster safe, equitable clinical learning environments, it is essential that clerkship directors are prepared for and comfortable with communicating with students and eliciting honest concerns. They also need to develop adequate skills in managing supervising physicians who are offenders, whether providing growth-oriented feedback, altering systems to create psychological safety, working with other UME and GME leaders to address more serious concerns, or distancing such physicians from their teaching roles.

Participants will learn about and share actionable methods of improving clerkship director-student communication to elicit concerns as well as discuss how clerkship directorscan navigate changes to their clerkship structure, curriculum, or faculty based instances of reported bias.