ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how power works within the context of healthcare. Specifically, we focus on microaggressions, which we argue, are subtle manifestations of power. In healthcare settings, microaggressions occur when those with greater power (i.e. healthcare workers) exert their power, often in subtle, unintentional ways, over their patients who are members of one or more structurally marginalized group. Such microaggressions result in a host of short- and long-term harms, which this chapter explores and analyzes. Insofar as microaggressions reflect and reinforce unjust power imbalances and result in serious and enduring harms to those on the receiving end, we argue that they must be better understood and that more work must be done to reduce their prevalence in healthcare contexts and beyond.
