Experiences of US medical students
Data files
Apr 30, 2024 version files 90.65 KB
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Final_DocPathData.xlsx
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README.md
Apr 30, 2024 version files 90.65 KB
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Final_DocPathData.xlsx
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README.md
Abstract
Purpose: To determine if medical students of different races/ethnicities or genders have different perceptions of bias in the United States (US).
Methods: An IRB-approved, anonymous survey was sent to US medical students from November 2022 through February 2024. Students responded to statements regarding perceptions of bias toward them from attendings, patients, and classmates. Chi-square tests, or Fisher’s exact tests, when appropriate, were used to calculate if significant differences exist among genders or races/ethnicities in response to these statements.
Results: 370 students responded to this survey. Most respondents were women (n=259, 70%), and nearly half were White (n=164, 44.3%). 8.5% of women agreed that they felt excluded by attendings due to their gender, compared to 2.9% of men (p=0.018). 87.5% and 73.3% of Hispanic and Black students agreed that bias due to race negatively impacted research opportunities compared to 37.2% of White students (p<0.001). 87% and 85.7% of White and Asian/Pacific Islander students, respectively, believed that an attending would treat multiple trainees the same regardless of religion compared to 50% of Black students (p<0.001). A greater proportion of Hispanic and Black students than White and Asian/Pacific Islander students believe that bias due to gender affects research opportunities. More than a quarter of students personally experienced some form of bias from attending with no significant difference based on gender or race/ethnicity. Most women (66%) reported that they were assumed to be a nurse compared to 1.9% of men (p<0.001). 30% of Black, 18.8% of Hispanic, and 12.2% of Asian/Pacific Islander students felt excluded by their classmates due to their race compared to 4.3% of White students (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Gender or race/ethnicity affects perceptions of bias from attendings, patients, and classmates. This study lends insight into the experiences and perceptions of medical students of different racial/ethnic and gender identities backgrounds in the US.
README: Experiences of US medical students - a national survey
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjbq
This dataset contains responses to an anonymous, IRB-approved survey sent to medical students across the country. The survey included demographic information and students' responses to various questions regarding their medical school experience.
Description of the data and file structure
The data is structured so that each row is an individual response. A researcher could analyze the data to see what demographic factors are related to various survey responses.
There are certain questions on the survey that respondents could respond "NA" to if the question did not apply to them. For example, the last question on the survey asks,
If you are an MS4, do you feel ready to be a doctor and take care of patients next year as an intern? |
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Students who were not MS4s while responding to the survey responded "NA".
There are also empty cells in the database. This indicates that the individual did not respond to this specific question. There is missing data for several of the participants. We left these cells empty to distinguish between individuals who responded "NA" to a specific question (as described above) and individuals who did not answer a specific question.
Several of the indirect identifiers have been removed to protect respondent confidentiality. If you are interested in receiving the entire dataset, please feel free to contact Jamie Karl for more information at jamie.karl@duke.edu.
Sharing/Access information
N/A
Code/Software
R version 4.2.3 was used to run the files. The dplyr package was used to run the files.
Methods
This data was collected through Google Forms, and respondents were asked to log in with their email addresses to make sure that they could only submit their responses once. Data was processed in R studio.