When physicians who reflect the gender, color, and ethnicity of patient populations deliver safe, high-quality treatment, health care injustice is more easily remedied. Therefore, it was critical to teach and assess racially diverse physicians enrolled in residency programs. For a study, researchers sought to determine if there were any test-taking discrepancies between black and white Emergency Medicine (EM) residents and, if so, if such gaps would shrink as residency continued.
It was cross-sectional observational research that looked at the performance (scaled scores) on the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) In-Training Examination (ITE) in 2018, 2019, and 2020. The research comprised ITE-taking EM residents in 3-year programs. For the variables of race, which comprised black and white physicians (reference group), and amount of training, a linear regression model was applied (EM resident year 1 [EM1] as the reference group).
There were 9,591 people, including 539 black people and 9,052 white people. The mean scaled scores increased as the training level increased. The scaled score intercept of regression was 73.51. The ITE score rose with the training level in all groups (EM2 β=+5.45, P< 0.0001; EM3 β=+8.09, P<0.0001). -5.87 (P< 0.0001) was the regression coefficient for black inhabitants. There was a relative improvement in training level compared to improvement in the control group, but this difference was neither substantial nor statistically significant.
A test-taking performance disparity discovered early in residency for black physicians remained throughout late residency in this study of the ABEM ITE.
Reference: jem-journal.com/article/S0736-4679(22)00075-0/fulltext
