What is a key strategy to address personal biases in patient care?

• A. Denying biases helps ensure objectivity.
• B. Recognizing and understanding personal biases.
• C. Biases have no impact on care.
• D. Biases should be used to discipline patients.

Answer: (B)

Recognizing and understanding your own personal biases is essential for delivering equitable patient care. When you identify these biases, you can pause before acting, check assumptions against objective information, and adjust your approach to better reflect the patient’s needs. This awareness supports using open-ended questions, confirming understanding, involving interpreters when necessary, and following evidence-based guidelines to reduce subjective influence. Reflective practice, education on cultural humility, feedback from colleagues, and exposure to diverse patient perspectives strengthen this process over time. Denying biases doesn’t remove their influence, and assuming biases have no effect ignores real clinical practice. Using biases to discipline patients is unethical and harms trust and care quality.