Microaggressions: Understanding What They Are, Why They Are Harmful to Health and How to Manage Them

Presented by: Aarati Didwania, MD, MSCI

This session will discuss various aspects of microaggressions. Microaggressions can potentially impact health outcomes. Patients may not feel comfortable sharing personal information with a clinician they view as hostile/not understanding. At the same time, systemic racism is a public health issue. The definition of microaggressions will be reviewed, as well as the subsets of microaggressions. The presentation will also include discussions about the harm that repetitive exposure can pose to an individual and subsequent impact on the workplace. In addition, strategies to understand one’s own implicit biases and techniques to manage microaggressions from the viewpoint of those receiving them and those that are unintentionally delivering them will be discussed.

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 Integrative Healthcare Symposium Annual Conference.