July 20, 2023

TRI/CTSA Multi-Institutional Pilot Award to Address Patient Prejudice toward Physicians

UAMS surgeon Karen Dickinson, M.D., MBBS, M.Ed., FRCS, will co-lead a pilot study with Michael Andreae, M.D., Ph.D., professor of anesthesiology at the University of Utah, and Anita Fernander, executive diversity officer and professor at the University of New Mexico, to address patient prejudice toward physicians.

Each institution will receive $25,000 as part of the Consortium of Rural States (CORES) Grant Program. The program is funded by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program, which supports TRI.

The project, entitled, “Defining, Developing and Disseminating Effective Team Responses for Patient Prejudice Towards Perioperative Physicians through Simulation and Cognitive Task Analysis,” aims to tackle patient prejudice as a barrier to translational science due to its negative impact on diversity in the clinical research workforce.

Dickinson is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Surgery and director of Interprofessional Education Simulation and Clinical Skills Training in the Office of Interprofessional Education; surgical director, American College of Surgeons Accredited Educational Institute, and associate medical director, UAMS Centers for Simulation Education.

Other members of the CORES collaborative include the University of Kansas Medical Center, University of Kentucky and University of Iowa.