Implicit bias happens automatically and without intention. Nevertheless, these thoughts affect a person’s judgements, considerations, and behaviors. It is well-demonstrated in the literature that physicians experience implicit bias toward their patients, which in turn contributes to health inequities. However, there is little research conducted on patients’ implicit bias towards their physicians. Previous studies report no statistical difference in patient satisfaction when controlled for physician gender, despite evidence from opposing studies that identify female physicians as establishing more patient-centered care. This spurs a clinically relevant discussion surrounding bias in patients’ evaluations. There are limitations in collecting this data, as patients must be in a controlled environment, yet unaware of the research being conducted. As a result, Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), in which medical students are graded and receive feedback from Standardized Patients (SPs), lend an ideal environment to study patient implicit bias. Our study examines the implicit bias of SPs toward their student doctors based on gender during OSCEs. Data from Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine’s SP student doctor evaluations, obtained in OSCEs, was acquired and de-identified. Consent from SPs to conduct this research was obtained, yielding 576 comments for 90 first-year medical students across 8 OSCEs. A direct content analysis was performed on these comments. Guided by prior literature surrounding patients’ perception of physicians, feedback was coded into five categories: compassion, demeanor, communication, comfort delivery, and physical appearance. Within each category, feedback was further coded by male or female student doctor gender and positive or negative feedback sentiment. A chi-squared test for independence was performed on data in each category to explore the hypothesis:

H0: There is no association between medical student gender and simulated patient feedback sentiment.

HA: There is a significant association between female gender and positive feedback sentiment.

Results displayed a significant association between female student gender and positive SP feedback regarding compassion (p = 0.017), as well as a significant association between female student gender and negative SP feedback regarding physical appearance (p = 0.038). There was no significant association found between medical student gender and SP feedback regarding student demeanor, communication, or comfort delivery. These findings aid understanding of how physicians’ genders correlate with patients’ perceptions of them, and which characteristics in a clinical encounter can be leveraged to significantly impact this impression.