I wonder why this is:
Doctors were more likely to think “Mr. Thompson” was having a heart attack when he was black than when he was white. But they did not prescribe treatment to reflect this — physicians who thought a black Mr. Thompson was having a heart attack prescribed thrombolysis less often than when they thought a white Mr. Thompson was having one.
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You know, from my reading of this, each doctor was asked only once what they would prescribe. They weren’t given numerous case studies and asked to provide treatment options on various people.
If this is true, it means they did not compute the odds that a certain percentage of physicians are simply reluctant to use that form of treatment. Perhaps they should have tested the group for this first.
Also, the only real way to test is to follow the doctors through emergency rooms and see how often they prescribe things like that in real life.
A test type atmosphere is all well and good – but people do respond differently on theoretical tests than they do in a clinical setting where they are looking directly at a patient.
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