Geripal-podcast

Amber Barnato is an expert in simulation studies.  A health services researcher and palliative care physician, Amber lauds the ability of simulation studies to isolate one variable in a study.  For example, we spend the first half talking about a RCT simulation study of clinician verbal and non-verbal communication with a seriously ill patient with cancer. In one room the physician under study interacts with a white patient-actor, and in another room interacts with a Black patient-actor.  They found no differences in verbal communication, but clear differences in non-verbal rapport building communication: physicians stood farther away, crossed their arms, didn’t touch the Black patient as frequently.  Amber tells the moving story of how these findings led a clinical colleague, her chief, to question and change his behavior. Of note, we talked about implicit bias in depth in this podcast with Kimberely Courseen.  As we’ve written about on GeriPal when we were a blog (a decade ago!) these simulation studies c