Patient Perceptions of East and Southeast Asian Physicians Amidst Anti-Asian Rhetoric During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

To examine the effects of anti-Asian rhetoric on how patients perceive East/Southeast Asian physicians. This study examines changes in patient satisfaction scores of East/Southeast Asian physicians in a multisite health system following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a multisite retrospective study of clinicians from outpatient practices at a single health care system who received patient satisfaction scores via Press Ganey surveys starting 1 year prepandemic (January 1, 2019) through 2 years into the pandemic (December 31, 2021). Press Ganey survey responses use a Likert scale, with calculated top-box percentages, which were stratified by physician race/ethnicity and year of the patient encounter. Comparison between groups was performed using Kruskal-Wallis tests. A total of 2219 physicians were included in this study. Results revealed that East/Southeast Asian physicians did not experience a substantial increase or decrease in patient satisfaction scores relative to White physicians during the first year of the pandemic (2020). The study also revealed an overall increase in patient satisfaction scores for all physicians at Mayo Clinic from 2019 to 2021. These findings contribute to the growing literature on the experience of Asian health care workers in the United States and highlight the need for further investigation into the experiences of physicians of color during the volatility of the pandemic.