Residents in a Room

Episode Number: 68

Episode Title: Microaggressions in the Workplace

Recorded: September 2024

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VOICE OVER:

This is Residents in a Room, an official podcast of the American Society of Anesthesiologists where we go behind the scenes to explore the world from the point of view of anesthesia residents.

So intention does not equal impact.

I think it's really critical that others are aware of what you encountered and that they're able to support you.

And if you find yourself having a conversation about this where everyone is feeling warm and fuzzy, then you're doing it the wrong way.

DR. TANISHA VERNEUS:

Welcome to Residents in a Room, the podcast for residents by residents. I'm Dr. Tanisha Verneus, a CA2 resident at Columbia and today's guest host. I'm joined by two attendings, Dr. Keya Locke and Dr. Luis Tollinche. We're going to attempt some real talk about microaggressions in the workplace. I'm so glad that you're both here with me for this to kick off our podcast today. Could you both please introduce yourselves briefly?

DR. LUIS TOLLINCHE:

Sure. I'd be happy to start, Dr. Verneus. Thank you so much for having me today. Excited to meet you and learn from you as we answer some questions. I am Luis Tollinche. I serve as the chair of anesthesiology at MetroHealth Medical Center. I'm a professor of anesthesia at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and serve as the medical director of perioperative Services at MetroHealth. I use he/him pronouns. Professional and personal interest in DEI and microaggression. So again, thank you for including me and look forward to our talk.

DR. KEYA LOCKE:

Thank you so much. I'm Dr. Keya Locke. I'm an associate professor at the University of Florida and the medical director of perioperative services here. I really appreciate you for for having us and for engaging with us in these conversations. On a more national level. I'm also an editor for the ASA Monitor. So just throwing in a plug for them, and I'm always happy to get these conversations going and just kind of keep getting the word out. So I appreciate you for having me and happy to answer some questions and have some good conversation.

DR. VERNEUS:

Perfect. Thank you for those introductions. It was really great having you both here. So for me as a black woman, I am very familiar with microaggressions. I've seen it in the workplace and DEI is something that I am very passionate about. Listeners are likely also familiar with what a microaggression is, but could you to touch upon what microaggressions look like in the healthcare setting, and specifically what they may look like in the operating room? Let's paint a picture for our listeners.

DR. TOLLINCHE:

So I'm happy to try to tackle that question. Very good question, Dr. Verneus.

So just by way of background, we know that the percentage of URM in medicine really hasn't changed much in the last two decades. Our US population of black people is roughly 13%, and unfortunately, only 3% of our medical school faculty identifies as black. It's also true for our Latinx. The population in the US is roughly 18% Latinx, but only 4% of our medical school faculty identifies as Latinx. And it gets worse when you look at promotion and rank. So 2% of all of our full professors across this country are Black or Latinx. When we look at gender, it's sobering. But 24% of our full professors in medicine are women.

Microaggressions is a term that we've thrown around, and sometimes it's a little unclear what we mean by that. So I love your question. Dr. Chester Pierce coined that term over 50 years ago, and I'm quoting from his famous paper that these are subtle, stunning, often automatic and nonverbal exchanges, which are really putdowns of black people by offenders. Of course, Sue et al. In 2007 changed it slightly to be more inclusive. And I quote, microaggressions are subtle snubs. They're slights and they're insults directed toward minorities, as well as to women and other historically stigmatized groups that implicitly communicate or at least engender hostility.

So what is this? What is a microaggression? There are globally three types of microaggressions as a review. The first is a microinsult, and these are these rude, sort of insensitive and even derogatory to an identity. What's an example of a microinsult? Um, that is when we confuse a physician with a janitor, simply because that physician doesn't appear to fit what we think of as stereotypical appearance of a physician.

The second type is a micro invalidations, and this is when we exclude, negate, or dismiss a personal thought or a feeling or an experiential reality of a person you know. Examples of this can be when you hear some people say the words, well, I'm colorblind. I treat everybody the same. What that does is negate a minority groups experience altogether, insisting, hey, work is a meritocracy. If you work hard, you can achieve what you want. And that is a myth that ignores that race or gender as a big part in determining a person's success.

The third type is micro assaults, and these are assaults that are actually intended to offend the target. An example is hey I'm not okay working with you because you're a woman or you belong to this particular group. Or comments like oh they'll let anybody become a doctor today.

So these globally can add up and they can lead to what we call environmental microaggressions. And these are when any of these three types of microaggressions are perpetuated in the culture of a system. We think of walking down a hallway, and looking at the pictures of the doctors in the halls, you will frequently see white male doctors that are represented. Or if we go to a meeting or a conference and we forget to have child care or breastfeeding rooms. An example is gendered bathrooms that can overlook and marginalize our patients and our family with gender identities that are different from ours. So micro insults and micro invalidations, they're different from micro assaults because they usually well-intended. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, and they're frequently unconscious. Dr. Verneus, Dr. Locke, what you and I might call a microaggression may vary. And that subjectivity creates social problems. So thank you for that great question and allowing me to lead us off.

DR. VERNEUS

Yes. Thank you for that response, doctor. Thank you for breaking down microaggressions for our listeners and really helping to put words to some of the experiences and the feelings that many of our listeners have gone through themselves, or maybe some of our listeners have witnessed. I know for myself, I have heard of the term microaggressions, but I didn't realize that there are so many subcategories to what microaggressions are and how you can describe them, but personally, they definitely are not unfamiliar to myself.

To go on to our next question, who is typically harmed by this? We talked a little bit about how we can see this in the workplace with medical students, with physicians, with pictures of prior chairs, department leaders in the workplace. But who else can be harmed by microaggressions?

DR. LOCKE:

Thanks so much for that question, Dr. Verneus. And I echo and kind of build upon what Dr. Tollinche has said already with the percentiles. Just thinking about our specialty. I want our listeners to keep in mind that for the specialty of anesthesia, less than 4% of underrepresented minorities are represented in our specialty, specifically. And as we previously mentioned, while this is a new, sort of within the last decade or a little bit more, I guess topic that we're now talking about in a data driven way, I'm sure many of our listeners can appreciate that this topic is by no way new, right? And it's something that, as health care professionals and as patients who are not white, quite frankly, or are not identifying as heterosexual or women, it's something that, you know, we've had to deal with for decades.

And so when we talk about who's being harmed by these type of microaggressions, I always like to talk about it as it pertains to a story. And so I'm sure you, likely, and our listeners have many stories of instances where this has caused some sort of harm. But looking at it as far as, you know, healthcare workers. So we talk about physicians or nurses or our anesthesia techs or anyone who kind of works in the spaces that we're commenting on today can be harmed by this. And for me, I took my current job probably about 7 or 8 years ago. You know, I first got to my department and to this institution, and when I arrived, I was a singular black woman in a department of anesthesiology that has about 27 faculty. And as Dr. Tollinche alluded to, you know, one night I was on call here at 2:00 in the morning getting ready to do an emergency case, and the nighttime nurse manager approaches me as I'm walking down the hallway and says, you know, have you picked the case for surgeon so-and-so? We need to make sure that Everything is ready. And I said, I'm sorry. What do you mean? And he's like, well, have you opened the room? And you know what's going on? And I said, well, I'm Dr. Locke, so I'm going to be the anesthesiologist. And he kind of, you know, he didn't even respond, quite frankly, because his face kind of was looking at me as if to say, I do not recognize what you're saying, right? You're telling me that you're Dr. Locke and I pulled my badge from my chest and showed him, but he was stunned, and there really isn't another word for it, but stunned. And so for me, in that moment, you could call that harm. I, you know, would presume to say. I mean, I felt angry more than anything, and I certainly let him know that I was angry. Um, but that's just one instance. I mean, personally, I've been asked while I'm changing in the scrub room, you know, have you emptied all the scrubs yet? And I'm like, I'm not with the cleaning crew. I'm sorry.

And so the harm comes come when we talk about health care workers, and that those kind of daily assaults really causes folks to have that feeling of being otherized in the spaces that we have to frequent. And outside of healthcare workers, when you talk about patients and microaggressions, a lot of the times black Americans or underrepresented minorities in general already walk into healthcare situations with a deep distrust of healthcare organizations. And microaggressions really fuel that, leading to patients, you know, speaking up and advocating for themselves less frequently, leading to them not seeking prompt care. And quite frankly, they end up distrusting the diagnosis. So once you have those microaggressions, you kind of layer on top of a historical distrust that's already built in that can be very harmful to patients as well. So I hope that answered that question for you and for our listeners.

DR. VERNEUS:

Yes. That did answer the question. It reminds me of many of the experiences that I've had, and it actually reminds me of a concept that I've read about a lot over the years, and that you two may be familiar with, the concept of weathering.

DR. LOCKE:

I'm very familiar with weathering, and I'm actually looking to write an article on that. And just for our listeners, weathering pertains to constant micro assaults and constant stress to underrepresented or marginalized groups. And that kind of constant, um, social assaults on folks have led to documented explanations of chronic illness. So actual measurable things that we can look at and areas where otherwise we could not account for the reasons that illnesses are so high in some minority populations. And so I appreciate you for bringing that up. Weathering is a great concept, and it's something that people may not be as familiar with, but I'm happy to talk about it more.

DR. VERNEUS:

Yes, I feel like with microaggressions, the name says micro but as Dr. Tollinche mentioned, they are not small. The effects accumulate over time. As you've also said, Dr. Locke. And oftentimes people don't realize how much of an impact that can have on the people who they are addressing. If we take away that micro term, to them, it may seem small, they may not notice, but like that invalidation, that aggression, the assaults, the insults really does play a role on our lives as physicians, on our patients lives. And as you mentioned, there are many health impacts that can be seen with research and kind of moving forward over the years.

To segue into our next question, what are the consequences of microaggressions for us as healthcare professionals, and what happens when we are otherized by our colleagues and our patients?

DR. LOCKE:

And that's a great question I'm happy to pick up. I know I kind of touched on it earlier, but that idea of being seen as other has some serious consequences, not only to us as healthcare professionals, but then to the care that we in turn are able to deliver. Right?

So microaggressions communicate a derogatory or exclusionary message to the target person. It's a way to communicate you don't belong. So constant small statements ultimately leave us questioning our right to exist in this space that we have to be in on a daily basis. And I also want to point out that it's important to understand that the intent of whatever said microaggression is not as important as the action. And so for health care professionals, you know, and between our colleagues or between patient and colleague, you know, we often end up in situations where something happens, right? And the offender often says, well, I didn't mean it that way or that's not what I intended. And that's what we end up focusing on. And in doing so, we simply empower the offender. And and you sort of kind of disempower the already disenfranchised party because you're focusing on the intent rather than how that action actually affected your colleague or yourself.

And so I think the consequences of doing that and having people sort of feel like, you know, you don't belong translates into the care that they give, translates into how comfortable they are interacting with with patients. And when people sort of are in that space where they're feeling guarded, either between their colleagues or between patients, it's going to affect subconsciously the way that they interact and the way that they deliver care. And so it's something to be aware of. It's a problem that still requires a lot of work, but I think conversations like this only kind of help us get closer to where we want to be.

DR. VERNEUS:

During my college years, we would talk a lot about how intention does not equal impact, and I think that is a very powerful saying. And I'm just going to say it again and like give a second so that it can like sit in with our listeners. Um, so intention does not equal impact. And I think that's really important because oftentimes in these situations we want to give grace and we want to like assume that everyone has the best intention, and that is true in some situations, but also to not acknowledge the impact that these microaggressions or whatever situation has on the person who has been hurt by them, is to really negate their experiences as well.

And so for our next question, I just want to talk a little bit about what should we do when this happens. Do you have any advice for how to handle situations that you might have observed yourself, or any situations that you might have been a part of, or situations in which you've been hurt?

DR. TOLLINCHE:

Sure, Dr. Verneus. I can try to tackle that one. Um, the first is, you know, I think as you've endorsed, this opportunity or risk of imposter syndrome is real. And when we continue to barrage with these negative innuendos or well-intended comments, it takes a toll. We must not leave this unchecked. And what I love, and most of the literature I've read on this, is a beautifully written review by David Wittkower in Academic Psychiatry. It's titled A Scoping Review of Recommendations and Training to Respond to Microaggressions. So I would draw our readers to this piece for help in answering this question with some clever points. I'll try to summarize them here.

But the first thing is that all too often the target, we just feel too vulnerable to respond. And what that does is it leaves that aggressor unchecked. And what I can promise you is that that individual unknowingly will do it again. And we're unfortunately colluding and complicitly adding to is that we're ensuring other victims will be there. So the first thing that's recommended is to ensure that you have a supportive culture, to work with your healthcare systems, check in with your supervisor, your chairs, your program directors and say, you know, are we providing training and education and do we have a mechanism to report these microaggressions?

The second is to address the microaggression head on. Make the invisible visible and bring it to awareness and actually confront the micro aggressor and express disagreement. Say, I just heard you say something and I want to talk about it because I'm not sure that I agree. Finally, educate the offender with facts and share why this might be harmful and patently false or incorrect.

Then we have to support the targets of microaggression. By all means, do not internalize this as a problem, as we've seen, and Dr. Locke has comprehensively pointed out, can have both health and emotional consequences, and it's incumbent on us not to internalize. Debrief after these experiences. Create a forum and an opportunity to conduct a debrief and what that does, Dr. Verneus, is that it validates your experience by being able to name it, to call it out and to say it and explore your feelings around it. Seek advice and learn best practices, just like you did right now. So how do I deal with it? How do I address it when it happens? And in that forum, you're most well equipped to learn from others and other experiences. Encourage and commend and salute your colleagues who do report this, whether it's the target or a witness. And then, of course, as I mentioned, avoid blame. This question, is it possible that you could have misunderstood or, gosh, I've cared for, you know, that individual patient or I've worked with that surgeon 100 times and I've never felt this. What that does, unfortunately, is undermine the target's microaggression and report. Finally, report and collect this data. There is no better mechanism to improve than to report out and to share the occurrences and the outcomes of these microaggressions.

DR. VERNEUS:

Thank you for the tips on how to deal with these situations. I know that when I have been on the receiving end of microaggressions, I often haven't had the courage to speak up. There have been many times where I've joked about it at a later time with someone of a similar identity with another black person like, oh, this person mistaken me for someone else, and they must have met the other black resident on the rotation or the other black medical student. And it can be really difficult and uncomfortable in those situations to really speak up and stand up for myself, or even when seeing it, to stand up for my colleague. But you touched on some great tips for how we can do that in the future.

I want to talk a little bit about what happens when the perpetrators are a patient. So we often think about the other staff within the hospital or coworkers, leadership. But what happens when it's the patients? How do we still advocate for our patients and make them feel safe, comfortable in that perioperative setting, while also standing up for ourselves?

DR. TOLLINCHE:

Yeah. Dr. Verneus, I love, love, love--um, yeah, that's three loves--I love this question. This is such an important question. And frequently something that's posed and met with, um, some unfortunate ambiguity. And why I love this question is there is a power dynamic that's occurring, certainly between the patient, the physician, and that patient doctor relationship, which is very different from a peer or a colleague who might use a microaggression, and to whom you would feel more appropriate to to address.

So when it's our patient, you're nervous, of course, about compromising that relationship and that sacred bond that you have. So I think the first bit of advice is, is pause and assess if it's actually appropriate. Right. There are some patients who candidly won't have decision making capacity. The patient might be unstable or the request may be ethical. You know, I think of a horrible scenario where a woman is a sexual trauma victim and is requesting only female physicians. That might change your, your, your paradigm when you're hearing these comments. And then finally, I think this is the hardest part, but will my discussion, my conversation compromise that patient care? And there's a lot of subjectivity there. But when you have come to a decision that it's appropriate to address head on, the first thing I would suggest is do something that I've heard you do just a few minutes ago, Dr. Verneus says is repeat the statement and let that sink in. Let the recipient allow for some reflection time. Repeat back what you just heard and then use that first person pronoun I, you know, I, Lewis, I heard what you said and I felt. And what that does is it allows him room to avoid that conflict and that confrontation and introduce the possibility that there is subjectivity that I felt that and maybe what you said wasn't intended to be harm, but it was so hurtful and impactful and I feel hurt.

Then you start that discussion head on with the patient and learn their perspective from a point of curiosity. Ask those questions. Remind the patient that microaggressions can actually compromise what we're doing here. I have a contract with you. I am your doctor and I want to help you. And you're supposed to be a patient who is respectful and allows me to do that to the best of my ability. Your comments are compromising my ability to best care for you.

And then finally, you remember that you can walk away. We're all in a position, fortunately, that our hospitals will support us in an environment where we're not feeling safe or able to care for a patient. You could always walk away.

Document that interaction and record if there are any witness names during that event with the patient. There are two models that are often referenced in the literature and many more than two. But my favorite two are one that's called the action model and the other is an XYZ model. And I try to use these when when possible. So action stands for, each letter of course has a representation and the A is asked. So ask that clarifying question. C from action is to come from curiosity not from judgment. Really be interested in how that patient arrived at that observation. T is tell what they observe. So I heard you say. I is impact. Tell the impact of the observed statement. You may not have meant this, but it was hurtful. And then O, own those thoughts and feelings. I felt so and so when I heard you say so and so. Finally, the end in action is next steps. So report that and seek social support. The other option is a little quicker and I draw from this more frequently. And that's the XYZ model. So simply it's I felt x when y because of z. So, for example, I felt uncomfortable when you overlooked me during that code and turned to a male colleague because I feel like I'm subjugated because of my gender. I hope that's helpful.Dr. Verneus, but really important to draw from all of those and consider the appropriateness of addressing with the patient in advance of enacting these.

DR. VERNEUS:

Yes, those are all very helpful frameworks for us to apply in these situations. Going on to our next question, how are institutions doing when it comes to protecting workforce and patients from microaggressions? It's one thing for individuals to jump in as allies, but do organizations have systems in place to protect and train and manage retaliation and issue? What would strong leadership on this topic look like?

DR. LOCKE:

Thank you so much for that question. And thank you for bringing up the previous question, and I appreciate Dr. Tollinche’s advice on how to sort of deal with that when it comes to a patient interaction rather than on an institutional level. And I just want to qualify it by saying, oftentimes in those situations, you know, your emotions are high. And I I've been in sticky situations with patients before. And the good thing about that is that typically, um, especially at the attending level, colleagues are usually available to come to your aid, right. So when things bad happen between physicians and patients, I've noticed that we do a really good job of rallying.

It becomes a bit more sticky and a bit more hard to deal with when you're talking about interpersonal, when you're talking about how institutions are, you know, doing to make sure that microaggressions are not invalidating the people that work here every day. And so to try and answer your questions at the at the very least, I would say that allyship is important. I feel like allyship around this topic has almost become a buzzword. It's it's great to talk about, but it sometimes can lead to sort of a rather passive response, meaning it's not very actionable. Everyone wants to be an ally, but you then find that there are a few who are actually willing to leverage their social capital to ensure that these things do not happen. Right? And so I find that oftentimes, as minority physicians, we are put in positions to have to be the ones doing the educating. And the burden falls on our shoulders. Right. And so people are asked to sort of bear our scars for no reason. Because if there is not an organizational structure that is going to take this head on outside of simply leaning into allyship, then we really haven't moved the needle in any way.

And so for me, every time, you know, I talk about this subject, it's important for others to realize on an organizational level, like looking at microaggressions in the workforce and how we're going to address them. For better or worse, inclusion, diversity, equity and access has become a part of every healthcare business model. So this isn't something that you can choose or not choose. You know, luckily, you know, it wasn't that way when I was going through training ten, 15 years ago, but it is that way now. So that's an important thing to recognize.

Other actionable things that institutions can do when there are leadership meetings or meetings for whatever reason. And you're sitting in a room full of colleagues and there's only one of me, or there's only one of you. Call on people in meetings. Allow, um, your room to give voice to people that may not feel 100% included in the conversation because nine out of ten times, or rather ten out of ten times, they have something valuable to offer but may not feel comfortable doing so.

Secondly, what I feel like organizations can do: when they are, you know, proposing to give talks to the institution on this topic and address it, be sure to vet your talk. If you are not someone who is underrepresented, vet your talks because oftentimes people will stand up and give talks on this topic, and a few minorities in the audience are like covering their faces like this can't actually be happening. So, you know, vet your talks, run it by someone to make sure that what you're saying is not going to come off the wrong way.

Diversify your ranks. And I think this is really important. It's great for us to talk about allyship.It's great for us to talk about microaggressions. But if our ranks are not diversified and we are not holding our leaders accountable for doing so, we're not addressing microaggressions in the workplace. We will never be able to because we will continue in a system where, you know, there's still that one person, there's still that two people, and we're not supporting them in a way that these things don't allow to continue happen by making sure that's no longer the case.

And next, I would say do what we're doing now, which is engage in the conversation on an organizational level, you have to be willing to embrace uncomfortable conversations because this isn't a comfortable topic. And if you find yourself having a conversation about this where everyone's feeling warm and fuzzy, then you're doing it the wrong way.

I would say that we also need to acknowledge that this is a problem and acknowledge that while this may be a subjective category, because of that, you have to be willing to acknowledge that the reality that is yours is not the reality of everyone. And to be comfortable with understanding that while this may not seem like a quote unquote real thing to you, it is a real thing to many, many others.

And then lastly, what's most important for me when we talk about training and engaging and managing this topic is, you know, we have a lot of people who are happy to talk about this, but it's important that this topic to me anyway specifically, it's important that this topic not be used as a topic for self-promotion. And so I find a lot of times, you know, people will give talks about things and it sounds good, but if you know those people personally, that's not really the walk that they walk. And so if you're going to, as an institution, put forward individuals who are going to rally and sort of be the face of whatever it is you're trying to accomplish, it has got to be someone who is willing to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk, because otherwise it becomes a particular brand of insult to find people talking about something that doesn't match their actions.

And so I feel like institutions that put sort of these actionable things into play are the ones who make real headway in this space.

DR. VERNEUS:

Thank you for that answer, Dr. Locke, to start to wrap up this episode. Do you have any resources you turn to? Let's leave our listeners with our go tos so they know how to find help when they are victims of microaggressions, or simply an observer who wants to know how to stand up and advocate.

DR. TOLLINCHE:

So Dr. Verneus, I want to echo some of Dr. Locke's comments from her response to the previous question around leadership and this notion that yes, an institution can have policies, but if the leadership isn't enforcing it and creating a culture of accountability, it won’t work. So I think that's hugely important. Now, I want to put an exclamation point on that comment that Dr. Locke added.

So resources. So I think the first is to remember that healthcare professionals, we should expect that microaggressions will occur, but we cannot accept them. And that's really important. So we know these will happen, but it's not a culture that we should tolerate. The second is train. Train on responding to microaggressions so that when you challenge a peer or a patient, they can say, oh gosh, well, I didn't really know that. I'd love to learn more. And here's an opportunity because we have those training sessions available to you. The next is create that reporting structure. So we don't know how well we're doing or if we've seen improvement, unless we have metrics to measure that. So another shout out to ASA Monitor for Dr. Locke is that only this last publication has a great piece by the Medical College of Wisconsin showcasing what they've developed is a reporting vehicle for microaggressions. And the article to which I draw your attention is worth a read. It shares how important this was and some of their successes in creating a reporting instrument for their system, so that individuals can confidentially and anonymously report microaggressions with the hope of improving on those.

I cited one publication earlier, the academic psychiatry journal. There's also a great paper in JAMA in 2019 titled Recognizing and Responding to Microaggressions that I would certainly offer to our listeners. And then finally, when we say training that can have many, many phenotypes. And just to touch on on what training really could be is, is, one, to ensure that we are able, as best we can, to define what microaggressions are. A corporate role playing. So, Dr. Verneus, you challenged us with great questions. And and so yes we know they're going to happen. How do you deal with it. How do you address these and have these very difficult conversations. Well, role playing is a really great opportunity and forum for exploring these emotions and practicing what you might say in those situations. I touched on debriefing previously, but the literature is starting to offer great signal that debriefing can improve in this setting. Report this to your institution and your supervisor and as I said before, document these interactions and report them through a reporting system that perhaps you can help develop.

DR. LOCKE:

Yes. Thank you very much. I really appreciated this talk. And Dr. Tollinchem thank you for pointing out that article by Medical College of Wisconsin. I'll just throw out that I gave a a talk to their department probably three years ago. And at that time, you know, we talked about microaggressions and structural racism. And I kind of left a lot of people with their mouths hanging open, quite frankly, and intended so. And a few of their colleagues who happened to be minorities, it was almost as if those folks felt seen for the first time. And and for their colleagues that were not, they commented like, My God, I forgot, or I didn't even realize that, you know, one of my colleagues is black. Like, I didn't think that this was a big deal or I didn't feel like we had a big problem. But after that, you know, we had a follow up conversation and they said, you know, we have some work to do. So when I saw the article, I was personally very proud, again, that, you know, when people stand up and talk about this and, I like to use the term bear their scars for the education of others, it's really, really rewarding to see that that has led to some sort of actionable change. Otherwise, it just kind of feels ucky, you know, that you're they're talking about, you know, things that happened to you and then nothing happens. So thank you for for pointing that out. I was very, very happy to see that article. And thank you so much for taking your time away to talk with us today.

DR. TOLLINCHE:

Well, it was my sincere privilege. You certainly delivered. And as I mentioned in our introductory remarks, I expected that I would learn from both your testimonial experience. And you you delivered. I have learned a great deal, and I appreciate being invited to share my experiences.

DR. VERNEUS:

Yes. Thank you, Dr. Locke and Dr. Tollinchi for being here today. I really appreciate you both taking the time to educate us on this important topic for sharing your expertise and bearing your own scars with me and our listeners. You have left our listeners with many gems, and it's been very validating for me to hear about your experiences and share these stories with our listeners. I hope our listeners feel more empowered and better equipped to confront microaggressions in the workplace. This is truly just the start of this conversation. To our listeners, thank you for joining us. Please come back soon for more episodes of Residents in a Room, the podcast for residents by residents.

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VOICE OVER

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