When patients demean healthcare providers

When patients demean physicians, nurses, and medical students on the basis of providers’ race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, it may undermine the therapeutic relationship between the patient and healthcare provider, compromise the quality of care, offend healthcare workers, violate their employment rights, cause them moral distress and burnout, and harm the educational environment. This project will analyze the range of such demeaning remarks and behaviors in a highly diverse academic public hospital. The project will also recommend institutional policies and protocols that balance respect for patient autonomy, the patient’s medical needs, and the rights and dignity of healthcare workers. The investigators will recommend how to change institutional culture to implement such policies and protocols. These policies and protocols could be adopted by other healthcare institutions throughout the country.