Racism and Clinical Decision Making- a Sociological Perspective in a Nursing Curriculum.

Making clinical decisions is vital in assuring safe and competent delivery of care. It has no place for racism. Nurse education spend a lot of time teaching nursing students the importance of clinical decision and how to make clinical decision, which is to be expected. Implicit and other forms of biases are understood as the central reason for decision making that clearly have an impact on all nurses thinking in relation to clinical decisions. However, racisms work in a very specific way and is imbedded in society so effectively that the transmission of racisms is regularly not acknowledged by these systems and institutions and those that work within them in positions of power. Nurse education and the NHS are systems and institutions that perpetuate racism even when explicitly wanting to do the opposite.

The evidence clearly identifies that Black and Brown patients have inferior healthcare outcomes than White patients. There are multiple factors for this but one of them is inappropriate clinical decision making based on racisms. An exploration of the evidence and the need for nurse education to acknowledge this and make real changes will be presented. How racisms both individual and institutionally functions in a way that impact on the lived experiences of Black and Brown patients in the NHS. Nurse’s clinical decisions can ultimately lead to inadequate care delivery. The complexities and theories of clinical decision-making and how clinical decisions are made will be considered, and how Whiteness as a social construct plays a significant role in British nursing education, evidence base and the function of racisms. Finally, what can nurse education actually do to make changes that will transform this current reality.