Implicit Bias Training and Servicio Social: A Comparative Analysis of Medical School Curricula in the United States and Mexico

Abstract

Recently, implicit bias training has been used by American medical schools to combat the biases of their students, faculty, and patients and help reduce health disparities. Despite Mexican medical schools requiring a year of service known as servicio social, in which medical schools serve low-income, and often non-Spanish speaking, rural, and indigenous patients, they do not receive any sort of implicit bias training. Although biases are innately human, I argue that the types of biases we have are influenced by our culture through institutions, in this case, medical colleges. Through literary research, in addition to the interviews I conducted and ethnographic work I completed in New York City and Guadalajara, Mexico, I illuminate the necessity and importance of implicit bias training in medical schools. I explain how training was advocated for by underrepresented minorities in medicine and its immense necessity in Mexican medical schools considering the dynamics of servicio social.