The Impact of Provider Demographics on Patients' Continuity of Care

The patients of the obstetrics and gynecology resident clinic at Good Samaritan Hospital have a poor follow-up rate for their gynecologic and prenatal care visits. In addition, patients oftentimes voice frustration over the care that they receive and sometimes remark that they feel their provider was "racist." These patients often have complex social situations that cannot be solved in one office visit but perhaps the providers' ability to gain the trust of the minority patients is inadequate. The residents in the OB/GYN program are 80% white with no African American representation. If patients are unable to connect with caregivers due to cross-cultural differences, this could be remedied by training current residents in cross-cultural communication or re-cruitment of a resident class more representative of the majority African American patient population. This project will provide perspective on the minority patients' needs in the provider-patient relationship and allow providers to reexamine their ability to gain trust with the ultimate goal to increase follow-up rates. Follow-up rates for prenatal care are directly linked to improved maternal and fetal outcomes. The investigators goals are threefold: to gain clarity on whether or not a more diverse resident group would be helpful in gaining the trust of patients, to assess the current state of the well-established historical and generational mistrust of medical care by the African American patients of the clinic, and to explore how patient perception of their provider impacts their rate of follow up in the large community hospital clinic.