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March 2022 Seminar Reflection

Caroline E. White

Department of Health Care Informatics, University of San Diego

HCIN 548

Professor Boone

March 10, 2022

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March 2022 Seminar Reflection

During this month’s seminar, students listened to a guest speaker, reviewed upcoming

graduation requirements, and discussed an article on race correction in health care. The guest

speaker, Deven O’Crump, spoke to the class on job searching, a topic that was very apropos for

me and my fellow classmates. Deven gave us great tips on resume writing and told us about how

she got her dream job at Johns Hopkins Hospital through networking as a volunteer youth rugby

coach, which surprised me. I also obtained both of my previous jobs in the healthcare industry

through networking. Reaching out to people in my network will be an important part of the job

searching process when I graduate.

As far as graduation requirements, I am making good progress on my ePortfolio and

capstone project, but still need to write my capstone paper and do my social justice requirement.

For the social justice requirement, however, the Healthcare Informatics Student Association

executive board and I are organizing a volunteering event soon with the House of Ukraine, a

local organization in Balboa Park. House of Ukraine is accepting volunteers to help put together

packages to send to Ukraine consisting of items such as military supplies, first aid kits,

medicines, military clothes, and diapers. I am looking forward to volunteering my time to help

Ukrainians in any way I can and doing something meaningful for my social justice requirement.

While job searching and graduation are at the forefront of my mind and my classmates’

minds, I am glad that we made time in our seminar to discuss an article that we read on race

correction entitled “Toward rational conversation about race, health risk, and nursing.” This

article, written by Park et al. (2021), introduced the topic of race correction, which involves the

use of a patient’s race in clinical algorithms that affect how a patient will be treated. For

example, these clinical algorithms can use race to influence a patient’s risk score (i.e., risk of
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complications in cardiovascular surgery) or whether they are eligible for a treatment, such as a

kidney transplant. While these race-based algorithms may be based on statistics and at times they

may even be well-intentioned, they are problematic. This is because race is broadly considered to

be a social construct. Race simply is not a very reliable indicator of one’s genetics (Vyas et al.,

2020). Vyas et al. (2020) state, “Studies of the genetic structure of human populations continue

to find more variation within racial groups than between them” (p. 879). For example, a Black

person might have more genetic similarities with a White person than another Black person.

Additionally, race correction is a social justice problem because it consistently causes people of

color to receive poorer care. For good reason, race correction has been under scrutiny in recent

years in the medical field. A study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is

researching the effectiveness of a new clinical algorithm for estimated glomerular filtration rate

(eGFR) (National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2021). They are proposing to remove race and

creatinine as variables in the eGFR algorithm and replace them with a blood lab test called

cystatin C (NIH, 2021). Cystatin C does not vary by race, unlike creatinine levels, which the NIH

says can vary by race (NIH, 2021). The new algorithm is supposedly just as accurate as the

previous algorithm without any racial bias (NIH, 2021). I hope that researchers continue to

progress in developing new unbiased, evidence-based algorithms so that race correction can stop

being one of many barriers to quality health care for people of color.
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References

National Institutes of Health (NIH). (2021, September 23). NIH-supported study suggests

alternative to race-based kidney. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-

supported-study-suggests-alternative-race-based-kidney-function-calculations

Park, M., Alston, A. D., & Washington-Brown, L. (2021, January 8). Toward rational

conversation about race, health risk, and nursing. American Nurse.

https://www.myamericannurse.com/toward-rational-conversation-race-in-healthcare/

Vyas, D. A., Eisenstein, L. G., & Jones, D. S. (2020). Hidden in Plain Sight — Reconsidering

the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms. New England Journal of Medicine,

383(9), 874–882. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmms2004740