Bias by design in medicine with Tarlan Hedayati

Bias by design in medicine with Tarlan Hedayati

In the last episode of Carr's Clinic, David Carr chats to Tarlan Hedayati about bias in medicine.

A patient comes into the emergency department and they are complaining of shortness of breath.

Typical measurements are taken including heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, rest rate and O2 sat.

Once the patient has been treated, they want to go home and we rely on vital signs and devices such as a pulse oximeter to determine if it is safe to do so.

But... what if the pulse oximeter measurement is flawed, biased and could potentially harm your patient?

Tragically the pulse oximeter has been proven to be inaccurate for non-white people.

The consequences of this can be devastating and these devices need to be reviewed to acknowledge the bias in their design and correct the flaw in their products.

What's even more concerning? Tarlan encourages us to consider what other sources of racial bias we might already have in clinical medicine that we haven't even considered or acknowledged yet?

Tune in to a great discussion with David Carr and Tarlan Hedayati on bias by design in medicine.

For more head to: codachange.org/podcasts