Radical Activism Will Ruin Medical Residencies

The medical residency is an essential part of physician education, yet it’s now being targeted by radical activists. Harvard University’s teaching hospital is leading the charge, and as its actions show, medical excellence and individual health will only go backwards as a result. 

To understand what’s happening, you first have to understand the residency process. Every year, thousands of medical students apply to various hospitals to continue their training with hands-on experience. The residency lasts three to seven years, and historically, medical students get accepted or rejected based largely on their test scores. The whole point is to uphold the highest standards of medical care and train the best possible physicians.

But high standards don’t mix with “anti-racist” ideology. At Harvard’s teaching hospital, Brigham and Women’s, the residency program has deliberately lowered standards in the name of diversity. Specifically, it has de-emphasized test scores in favor of “holistic reviews of all applicants.” Never mind that test scores are generally the best indicator of a physician’s ability to provide the best care to patients.

It gets worse. Harvard’s hospital has also forced the faculty and experts who pick residents to undergo “unconscious bias training.” That’s code for pushing them to focus on skin color, not academic expertise or individual excellence. 

Driving these changes is the activist view that more minority physicians will lead to better healthcare and outcomes for minority patients. Yet studies have found no evidence supporting this claim. If residency participants are chosen by race and not strictly on academic performance, the result will not be better care for some, but worse care for all. Lower standards for medical residencies mean lower standards for patient care.

What Harvard’s hospital is doing is a direct threat to patient health – and this same trend is already spreading nationwide. For the sake of physicians and patients alike, it must be stopped.