Course Description:

Physical therapy providers are not often exposed to certain demographics until in they find themselves in a clinical encounter with such individuals as patients. Unfortunately, it is when the individual is distressed by an illness or injury. These limited experiences can feed into the clinical judgments they may have without even being aware of them, known as implicit bias. While racial and ethnic biases are the most widely discussed in the country because of the multicultural nature of its population, there are other biases that are not as widely discussed such as body morphology, socioeconomic status, age, to name a few. These biases can impact a health care provider’s perceptions, judgements, and actions which could negatively impact the patient/client’s health outcomes. The first step to possibly eliminating implicit bias is to recognize and understand our own biases as individuals. The State of Michigan is the first to implement this bold move of requiring their health care providers to be aware of these implicit biases to serve the residents better. This introductory course on implicit bias will cover the historical basis and present consequences of implicit bias while exploring strategies to minimize influence of bias in physical therapy ultimately to improve delivery of healthcare services.