“What You Know You Should Receive”: Comparing Staff and Student Justice Perceptions within the Medical School Environment Open Access

Abstract

Similar to many other workplace environments, medical schools are subject to potent status hierarchies, begging the question of how low-status members in these systems, such as students and staff, come to evaluate their situations as just or unjust. Therefore, the present study aims to build off of extant sociological literature by exploring which of the three areas of justice—distributive, procedural, and interactional—medical students and staff emphasize most, as well as examining the impact of group-based and role-based status differences on student and staff justice perceptions. Relying on fairness heuristic theory, the author also examines whether medical students and staff generalize the justice evaluations they have formulated in areas with more knowledge to evaluations in areas of greater uncertainty. In order to parse out recurring themes, the author performs qualitative data analyses on 22 in-depth interviews with students and staff members. Overall, staff members show more concern for issues of distributive justice and role-based status differences, whereas students emphasize the importance of interactional justice and group-based status differences. Both groups demonstrate tendencies to generalize justice perceptions under conditions of uncertainty. Ultimately, the present study expands justice research into the realm of medical education and presents avenues for future exploration into how low-status groups formulate and utilize their justice evaluations.

Table of Contents

1) Introduction

2) Workplace Justice

3) Distributive Justice

4) Procedural Justice

5) Interactional Justice

7) Fairness Heuristic Theory — Process of Formulating Justice Evaluations

8) Status and Justice

9) Group-Based Status

10) Role-Based Status

11) Medical Education

14) Methods

16) Student Justice Perceptions

16) Interactional Justice Concerns

20) Grades

23) Professional Development Opportunities

25) Representativeness and Voice

27) Staff Justice Perceptions

27) Pay and Promotions

29) Professional Development Opportunities

30) Hierarchy Literacy and Respect

31) Unexpected Findings

32) Reciprocal Emotion Management

33) Defining “Underrepresented in Medicine”

34) Cultural Capital Deficits

37) Discussion

42) Limitations

43) Future Directions

45) References

About this Honors Thesis

Rights statement

• Permission granted by the author to include this thesis or dissertation in this repository. All rights reserved by the author. Please contact the author for information regarding the reproduction and use of this thesis or dissertation.

School	Emory College
Department	Sociology
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Sociology, Organizational Psychology, Social Sociology, General
Keyword	Interactional Justice Justice Evaluations Procedural Justice Fairness Medical Education Distributive Justice
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Scott, Tracy, Emory University
Committee Members	White, DeJuan, Emory University Hegtvedt, Karen, Emory University

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