Expert Conversations: Is Unconscious Bias Health Care’s “Dirty Little Secret”?

To be human is to have bias, and all are likely to be part of a disadvantaged group; but some groups have more disparities than others. Two orthopedic surgeons take the lid off one of medicine’s “dirty little secrets,” discussing ways in which unconscious bias toward race, ethnicity, gender, class, and condition results in better outcomes for some than others. Unless physicians can recognize and tackle their own unconscious biases, they may continue to be out of sync with their patients, and the nation will be sicker for it. With Mary O’Connor, MD, and Bonnie Simpson Mason, MD.

Mary O’Connor, MD, is a national leader for health equity. She chairs the multistakeholder coalition, Movement is Life. She is professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation at the Yale School of Medicine and emerita professor of orthopedics at the Mayo Clinic. She is cofounder and chief medical advisor of a new and innovative musculoskeletal company, VOYA Health, focused on transforming the delivery of patient-centered and value-driven care for all. 

Bonnie Simpson Mason, MD, is the founder and executive director of Nth Dimensions, a not-for-profit that works to increase the number of women and minority leaders in medicine and other doctor-level health sciences.

Published in partnership with