Racist and sexist discrimination in emergency rooms: this large European study quantifies the systemic problem

This is the first major study on these taboo issues in Europe: challenging sexist and racist biases in medical care. It was conducted from July 14 to August 15, 2023 among 1,563 emergency doctors and nurses in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Monaco in the form of a questionnaire. Without knowing the purpose of the study published on December 13, 2023 onEuropean Journal of Emergency Medicinethese healthcare workers had to sort and classify patients (generated by artificial intelligence) based on the severity of symptoms observed.

It is better to be a man than a woman and white than black

With identical symptoms, patients responded to eight typical profiles: a white man, a white woman, a black man, a black woman, an Asian man, an Asian woman, a North African man, a North African woman. It turns out like thisit is better to be a man than a woman and a white person than a racialized person (as in the rest of society, of course). The prize for underestimating symptoms goes to blacks, a fortiori women, the study summarizes:

«In 62% of cases the clinical case was considered a vital emergency when the associated image was that of a man, compared to 49% when it was a woman. […]

In 58% of cases the vital emergency was associated with an image of a white ethnic appearance, compared to 47% when the appearance was black. This is a viable emergency diagnosis in 63% of cases when the associated image was an image of a white man compared to 42% for a black woman. »

“Our medical thinking is sexist and racist”

Xavier Bobba, professor of emergency medicine at the CHU in Montpellier, here to direct the practice, wants to show through cells that combine the sociocultural perspectives influencing the diagnosis and the reward for the patient, telling he has Information about France :

“We see this trend every day in the field, but the survey results are even more dramatic than we thought. Our biases drive our intuitively established diagnoses in the emergency room. It’s interesting and disturbing at the same time. […]

Our medical thinking is sexist and racist. It’s like that everywhere. It is based on experience, on experiences, on feelings and also on beliefs. Proof, female doctors are just as discriminating as male doctors in assessing the severity of a woman’s symptoms. »

Nicknamed in medicine the “ Mediterranean syndrome “, these prejudices make life difficult for gendered and racialized people, even leading to their deaths, as Naomi Musenga’s story sadly illustrates. In late 2017, this 22-year-old young black woman twice called SAMU in distress, who made fun of her, leaving her to die in a preventable way.