The ACGME Takes Key Steps to Remove DEI from Accreditation Efforts

Last month, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the accreditor for medical residency programs, announced it would be suspending enforcement of two key “diversity” requirements.

The requirements were effectively diversity hiring mandates that required residency programs and their sponsoring institutions (e.g. medical schools) to have recruiting and retention policies that aim to boost diversity.

Now, the ACGME is taking steps to excise DEI from its operations.

According to the ACGME’s Annual Update, the ACGME’s Accreditation Data System (ADS), will no longer enable residency programs to submit information on their “diversity” efforts.

Previously, the ACGME asked programs to provide information on what the residency program “will be/is doing to achieve/ensure diversity in resident/fellow recruitment, and retention.”

Other prompts included: “Describe in detail what efforts your specific program is doing to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion for residents/fellows”; “Describe what the program will be/is doing to achieve/ensure diversity in the individuals participating in the program (e.g. faculty members, administrative personnel)”; and “Describe in detail what efforts your specific program is doing to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion for faculty members, administrative personnel, etc.”

Although the ACGME had already officially ended consideration of DEI in its accreditation decisions, these changes are still an important development.

They hamper the ability of the ACGME to consider DEI unofficially, and remove the incentive for residency programs to discriminate.

However, while this is an encouraging sign, DEI and racial discrimination may not be gone from residency programs for good; the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) intends to expand the reach of its residency application tools for the purpose of supporting “holistic review” admissions. 

“Holistic review” is often, in practice, a euphemism for race-conscious admissions and definitionally devalues merit and academic achievement in favor of other characteristics.

Still, the ACGME’s actions are a positive sign that medical education is, slowly but surely, headed in the right direction.