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Background: Racial bias in medical care is a significant public health issue, with increased focus on microaggressions and the quality of patient-provider interactions. Innovations in training interventions are needed to decrease microaggressions and improve provider communication and rapport with patients of color during medical encounters., Methods: This paper presents a pilot randomized trial of an innovative clinical workshop that employed a theoretical model from social and contextual behavioral sciences. The intervention specifically aimed to decrease providers' likelihood of expressing biases and negative stereotypes when interacting with patients of color in racially charged moments, such as when patients discuss past incidents of discrimination. Workshop exercises were informed by research on the importance of mindfulness and interracial contact involving reciprocal exchanges of vulnerability and responsiveness. Twenty-five medical student and recent graduate participants were randomized to a workshop intervention or no intervention. Outcomes were measured via provider self-report and observed changes in targeted provider behaviors. Specifically, two independent, blind teams of coders assessed provider emotional rapport and responsiveness during simulated interracial patient encounters with standardized Black patients who presented specific racial challenges to participants., Results: Greater improvements in observed emotional rapport and responsiveness (indexing fewer microaggressions), improved self-reported explicit attitudes toward minoritized groups, and improved self-reported working alliance and closeness with the Black standardized patients were observed and reported by intervention participants., Conclusions: Medical providers may be more likely to exhibit bias with patients of color in specific racially charged moments during medical encounters. This small-sample pilot study suggests that interventions that directly intervene to help providers improve responding in these moments by incorporating mindfulness and interracial contact may be beneficial in reducing racial health disparities.

High doses of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) antagonist mecamylamine can elicit somatic signs resembling those associated with nicotine withdrawal in nicotine-naïve adult rats. Understanding this phenomenon, and its possible modulation by acute nicotine and age, could inform the use of mecamylamine as both an experimental tool and potential pharmacotherapy for tobacco dependence and other disorders. This study evaluated the ability of high-dose mecamylamine to elicit somatic signs in adolescent rats, and the potential for acute nicotine pretreatment to potentiate this effect as previously reported in adults. Single or repeated injections of mecamylamine (1.5 or 3.0 mg/kg, s.c.) elicited somatic signs in nicotine-naïve adolescents, but this effect was not influenced by 2 h pretreatment with acute nicotine (0.5 mg/kg, s.c.). In an initial evaluation of the effects of age in this model, mecamylamine (2.25 mg/kg, s.c.) elicited somatic signs in nicotine-naïve adolescents and adults. This effect was modestly enhanced following acute nicotine injections in adults but not in adolescents, even when a higher nicotine dose (1.0 rather than 0.5 mg/kg, s.c.) was used in adolescents to account for age differences in nicotine pharmacokinetics. These studies are the first to show that mecamylamine elicits somatic signs in nicotine-naïve adolescent rats, an effect that should be considered when designing and interpreting studies examining effects of high doses of mecamylamine in adolescents. Our findings also provide preliminary evidence that these signs may be differentially modulated by acute nicotine pretreatment in adolescents versus adults.