Emails Reveal Political Rationale Behind UConn’s Woke Revision of Hippocratic Oath

In 2022, the University of Connecticut (UConn) School of Medicine debuted a “DEI-ified” version of the Hippocratic Oath for its new medical students. The school had transformed the oath – the cornerstone of Western medical ethics that includes the principle of “do no harm” – into a pledge of allegiance to social justice and DEI.

UConn’s oath, which was used in the school’s White Coat Ceremony for the class of 2028, now includes the following commitments: “I will work actively to identify and mitigate my own biases so as to treat all patients and coworkers with humility and dignity”; “I will strive to promote health equity”; “I will actively support policies that promote social justice and specifically work to dismantle policies that perpetuate inequities, exclusion, discrimination and racism.”

As Do No Harm previously pointed out, many of these commitments, such as “health equity,” contradict the Hippocratic Oath’s principles by implicitly endorsing racially discriminatory policies that, in practice, preference certain racial groups over others and thus harm unfavored patients. The oath dedicates comparatively less time to any actual tenets of medical education or the development of medical expertise.

It’s obvious that UConn’s decision to alter its Hippocratic Oath was in service of its DEI agenda. But internal communications obtained by Do No Harm between UConn medical school faculty reveal not only their rationale for making this change, but also the depth of their commitments to ideology over medical education.

UConn’s faculty first began considering altering the Hippocratic Oath in November 2020 after Dr. Clara Weinstock proposed the idea to the Department of Internal Medicine’s Diversity Committee, according to the internal communications. The Diversity Committee endorsed the proposal, and in 2021, both the dean of the UConn School of Medicine and the associate dean for medical student affairs approved the drafting of a proposal. 

According to the communications, Dr. Weinstock then created a working group to draft the proposal, which included student and faculty representatives from the following UConn “diversity” and “ethics-related” interest groups: the “Student National Medical Association, Latin@ Medical Student Association, South Asian Medical/Dental Association, Disabilities Interest Group, Reach Out [LGBTQAI+], Gold Humanism Society as well as the Director of Immigrant Health and members of the Internal Medicine Diversity Committee.”

The 2021 proposal to change the oath makes explicit the view that physicians should be political activists working to advance “social justice” and “antiracism.”

“Another way in which UConn SOM can reaffirm its commitment to social justice and antiracism is through a public affirmation, one that every future MD participates in first at the White Coat Ceremony, and then again, during Commencement, when students officially are welcomed into the profession,” the proposal reads. “Faculty, alumni, and other physicians join in reaffirming their pledge to the profession.”

Administrators for undergraduate medical education approved the proposal with some small revisions in November 2021.

The proposal goes on to reference a previous oath that UConn used, and says that “some of the language and content could be updated to reflect the active responsibility physicians have to change systems that perpetuate discrimination, racism, and inequities in health.”

Moreover, as justification for this pledge, the proposal cites “the violent murders of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, the 6 women of Asian descent killed in Atlanta Georgia: Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng, and countless others,” which the proposal says “have put yet another spotlight on the pervasiveness of racism and injustice in the U.S.” and “continues to adversely affect the health and well-being of many members of our community; Black and Brown men, women, and children.”

It’s important not to lose sight of what’s going on here: UConn is using the foundational oath of medical responsibility as a vehicle for a pledge of allegiance to radical political ideology. The justification for this change expressly states that revising the oath is to further these ideological goals.

This is absolutely not the appropriate role of a medical school, and forcing new medical students to swear an oath to advance this agenda is downright perverse. 

Physicians are not activists. And indoctrinating new medical students into the belief that activism and the practice of medicine are one and the same will only harm patients.

Just look at the fruits of these beliefs: racially discriminatory policies that prioritize certain races for organ transplants in the name of “health equity.” Or fallacious notions that jeopardize patient care to reduce disparities between races.

The list goes on.