“Differentiated care, discrimination and racism in healthcare.” The title of the course may come as a surprise in a medical school, but the sixth-year students who took their seats in the lecture hall on the campus of the Hôpital Saint-Antoine (AP-HP) on Monday, December 2, didn’t seem overly surprised. While they are widely aware of discrimination issues, this is nevertheless their first teaching on a subject that is still rare in the curricula of future doctors: that of “implicit racial biases,” which can influence medical treatment. The teacher, midwife, and sociologist, Priscille Sauvegrain, accompanied by psychologist Racky Ka-Sy, teach this course created in 2023 at Sorbonne Université. They attempt to synthesize research in this sensitive field, which is still relatively unexplored in France.

Doesn’t medicine, and its Hippocratic oath, presuppose that doctors treat their patients “without any discrimination”? Don’t clinical examination and the medical approach exclude such biases? The speakers have two three-hour slots, facing the students, to substantiate the existence of these biases, describe their mechanisms, and provoke awareness.

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