There is evidence that health professionals’ decision making contributes to health disparities (Burgess, Fu & van Ryn 2004; Curtis et al. 2010; Dovidio & Fiske 2012; Harris et al. 2012; Smedley, Stith & Nelson 2003). This paper reports on the Inala Project, a study conducted at the Inala Indigenous Health Service (an urban comprehensive Indigenous primary health care service in Brisbane’s south-west) as part of the Educating for Equity Decision Making in Health sub-project.
The Inala Project continues our inquiry into factors that might influence the quality and nature of clinical decision making in an Indigenous health context (Ewen et al. 2015).3 Our previous study, reported in Ewen et al. (2015), involved final year medical students from two graduate entry medical programs (one in Melbourne and one in Honolulu). The participants were given a paper-based patient scenario to explore the impact of patient ethnicity on their assumptions, clinical decision making and construction of the person in the scenario. The Inala Project, using the same paper-based scenario, aimed to explore the influence of a clinical placement at the Inala Indigenous Health Service on participants’ assumptions, knowledge and understanding of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous health
