Further, close to 20% of responding physicians had experiences in which patients or their family members or visitors refused to allow the physician to care for them because of the physician’s racial or ethnic attributes or gender.
“This is a staggering number,” says Lotte Dyrbye, MD, senior associate dean of faculty and chief well-being officer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “Simply having patients or family members say, ‘No, you can’t provide care because of the way you look’ — not because of competency – is really heartbreaking.”