Takeaway
Past interactions can unconsciously influence how we perceive colleagues and patients. Ask yourself, "Who from my past might be shaping how I’m considering this person in front of me?" to catch hidden biases.
Lifelong learning in clinical excellence | May 15, 2026 | 2 min read
By Nettie Reynolds, MDiv, interfaith chaplain
I didn’t think of myself as someone who made quick judgments. Maybe that’s part of why I missed it when I did. I was trained to listen, to stay open, and to meet people where they were. That was the work, and I believed I was doing it.
But there was a clinician I worked with on the cardiology unit who unsettled that idea. She had a directness about her, a clipped way of speaking, and I filled in the rest. I assumed she would be less open to the kind of relational or spiritual care I was there to offer as the hospital chaplain. I imagined she might tolerate it but not really see it as part of the work.
I wouldn’t have said any of this if you’d asked me directly. It didn’t feel like a belief I was holding. It felt like an impression, something neutral, something observational. But it was already shaping how I saw her.
My impression of her took hold. If she kept her updates brief, I heard it as impatience. When she answered families directly, without softening it, I took it as lack of empathy. Even when she paused, I didn’t read it as making space. I read it as distance.
Mrs. Brewer
What I realized later was that it wasn’t her—it was me. She reminded me of my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Brewer. This was in the 1970s, when classrooms were stricter, and things were handled differently than they are now. She ran a quiet classroom. Students didn’t speak unless they were called on. There was a paddle at the front of the room, and sometimes she carried it as she walked between desks.
I was painfully shy, especially when it came to speaking in front of the class. She would call on me to read out loud in front of the class, even though it was something I struggled with. Sometimes, if I didn’t get up right away, she would pull the back of my ponytail. I remember standing there, trying to get through the words, getting tongue-tied or starting to cry while the room waited.
My shift in thinking
Nothing about the clinician had changed. What shifted was my ability to see her more clearly. Over time, I noticed the steadiness in how she worked, the clarity she brought to difficult conversations, and the way she stayed with families when decisions were hard. The care was there; it just looked different from mine.
Bias in healthcare
Recent systematic reviews show that bias among healthcare professionals shapes how clinicians communicate, interpret behavior, and make decisions about patient care. Much less has been written about how bias shapes our interactions with coworkers.
The good news is we can learn to see and do things differently. My work with colleagues shifted as I got better at catching my own assumptions in real time. Something you can ask yourself to uncover some hidden biases is, “Who from your past might be shaping your assumptions today?”
This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.