Health and Disability

"Although we found that physicians said the same things to their black and white patients, communication is not just the spoken word," wrote Dr. Amber E. Barnato, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the study's senior author. "It also involves nonverbal cues, such as eye contact, body positioning and touch."

And that's where the doctors in the study let their black "patients" down, the research suggests.

When interacting with whites -- explaining their health condition and what the next steps might be -- the doctors in the simulations tended to stand close to the bedside and were more likely to touch the person in a sympathetic way.

With blacks, the doctors were more likely to remain standing at the door of the hospital room and to use their hands to hold a binder -- a posture that could make them appear defensive or disengaged.