By The Associated Press Subconscious prejudices among doctors may help explain why women and blacks complaining of chest pain are less likely than men and whites to receive the best cardiac testing, a study suggests. Researchers have found such differences in care previously, and have attributed them to financial barriers and differences in patients' preferences, medical condition and access to care. However, a new study of 720 physicians found that, with all symptoms being equal, doctors were only 60 percent as likely to order cardiac catheterization for women and blacks as for men and whites. For black women, the doctors were only 40 percent as likely to order catheterization.
Catheterization is considered the ''gold standard'' diagnostic test for heart disease.
The patients were really actors. There were two black women, two black men, two white women and two white men, divided into two identical groups. The actors described identical symptoms. Information such as insurance coverage, profession and results of a heart stress test also were the same. The research was reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.