The High Cost Of Woke Speakers At MUSC

We’ve previously reported on the “day of discrimination” hosted by the Medical College of South Carolina. Now we know how much MUSC paid for the privilege of accusing its faculty, staff, and students of bias, racism, and white privilege.

We submitted a freedom of information request to MUSC, asking for copies of the contracts and invoices for the speakers at the “Inclusion to Innovation” summit. It turns out the medical school paid a whopping $45,000 for woke speakers, including Robin DiAngelo and Isabel Wilkerson.

Who are these people? Robin DiAngelo is the author of “White Fragility,” one of the seminal works in the woke canon. It accuses white people of racism and encourages radical re-education along racial lines. Such indoctrination is exactly what MUSC is now implementing.

Isabel Wilkerson is no better. She argues that America isn’t just racist – it actually suffers from a “caste system.” The “solution,” naturally, is to radically reorient society along race-based lines. Indoctrinating faculty and students is necessary to the success of this extremist project.

What does any of this have to do with medical education at MUSC? Nothing. If anything, it will worsen the quality of that education, and ultimately, the care that medical students provide when they enter the field. The last thing MUSC should be doing is drilling divisive and discriminatory ideas into people’s heads.

Taxpayers fund a significant part of the Medical College of South Carolina. They – and the state’s lawmakers – should be asking why they’re forking over so much money for woke indoctrination. If anyone can save MUSC, it’s the people and their representatives.

Is your medical school forcing woke ideology down people’s throats? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.

The Office for Civil Rights is Investigating UT Health for Racial Discrimination

Another Texas medical school is being investigated for discriminatory scholarship practices.

The University of Texas (UT Health) Long School of Medicine (LSOM) sponsors the Diversity in Medicine Visiting Elective Scholars Program, which provides a stipend of up to $2,000 for expenses associated with participating in a four-week rotation in one of 22 medical specialties. With support from the Office of the Dean, the UT Health Office for Inclusion and Diversity at the LSOM is funding the scholarship.

In response to a federal civil rights complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) about this program, an investigation was opened by the Dallas OCR on November 10, 2022. 

Do No Harm senior fellow Mark Perry filed the complaint on September 1 citing discriminatory inclusion criteria that required applicants to “identify as one or more of the following underrepresented backgrounds: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.” Discrimination on the basis of race is prohibited under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

However, UT Health’s Office for Inclusion and Diversity in the LSOM has taken down the page for the program named in the complaint, and has scrubbed its website of any reference to it. An archived version of the program’s page can be accessed here.

Have you been excluded from a scholarship or fellowship at your medical or nursing school because of discriminatory inclusion criteria? Do No Harm wants to hear from you, and you may remain anonymous if you wish.

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine is Being Investigated for Racial Discrimination

The Johns Hopkins Harriet Lane Pediatric Residency Training Program says that it “strongly values diversity.” Unfortunately, they aren’t demonstrating those values when it comes to inclusion in its pediatric specialty rotations.

In response to a Title VI complaint filed by Do No Harm senior fellow Mark Perry, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the Visiting Elective Program for Students Underrepresented in Medicine, as it restricts eligibility to medical students  from groups defined as underrepresented: “Black (African/African American), Latino/Hispanic (Mexican American, Cuban American, Puerto Rican, Central American, South American), Native American, and Native Hawaiian.” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin which is why the OCR has jurisdiction to conduct a federal civil rights investigation of Johns Hopkins

The online application makes it clear who is (and is not) eligible for the program, which provides a stipend of up to $2,000 for the six medical students who are chosen.

The John Hopkins Medicine Equity Statement says the organization believes in promoting inclusion in education and declares, “We stand against discrimination and oppression in all their forms.” Let’s hope they choose to live up to that mission.

Have you been excluded from a scholarship or fellowship at your medical or nursing school because of discriminatory inclusion criteria? Do No Harm wants to hear from you, and you may remain anonymous if you wish.

The Medical University of South Carolina Hosts a Day of Discrimination

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is rushing toward radicalism. On November 7, chief equity officer Willette Burnham-Williams hosted a day-long virtual webinar titled Inclusion to Innovation. It provided 6 hours of continuing medical education credit to participants, and “strategic intentionality” was the primary focus – not improving care for individual patients. 

Dr. Christopher King of Georgetown University set the tone for the webinar with a keynote address. He declared that clinicians are “operating in a system that has been rooted in injustice.” He says these systems must be “critically audited” because “bias is there; systemic racism is there.” He concludes by stating, “you can’t have quality and safety without equity.”

It only got worse from there. In the name of “infusing diversity and inclusion into the curriculum,” B. DaNine Fleming, Ed.D. and associate chief officer for inclusive excellence at MUSC, hosted a session with author/activist Robin DiAngelo. DiAngelo directed her remarks to “the white members of this audience,” asking: “did you study systemic racism,” along with questions that insult and demean participants:

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Remarkably, DiAngelo’s brief reference to “a foundational understanding of systemic racism” before being able to practice is the sole mention of anything related to medicine. Her main message focused on “white fragility,” “explicit white nationalism,” “a sociology of dominance,” and quoting Ibram X. Kendi. After stating, “So there is no such thing as reverse racism,” DiAngelo told the audience:

If you are white, I want you to think about black people. You know they exist if you watch Disney movies, if you go to the grocery store and you buy pancake syrup and rice, you know they exist.

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[VIDEO 1 – Robin DiAngelo]

Then there was the final presentation of the webinar. Author Isabel Wilkerson used her presentation time to propagate discredited narratives related to January 6, 2021. Wilkerson asserted that “half a dozen” law enforcement officers “actually died as a result of that attack” and asked the audience to consider “what would have happened had the people who looked like the janitors” would have “broken into the United States capitol?” Her answer? “They would not have lived to tell.”

[VIDEO 2 – Isabel Wilkerson]

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Why is the Medical University of South Carolina promoting these divisive topics and concepts, instead of focusing on medicine and providing better standards of care? It owes an appropriate learning experience to its students, faculty, and staff members, all of whom should worry about what’s happening to their institution.

Is your school or organization hosting conferences or training sessions that promote radical ideologies instead of medical education? We want to hear from you – anonymously and securely.

S1E2: Politics in Medicine

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In our second episode, Benita Cotton-Orr and Dr. Stanley Goldfarb discuss when—and how—politics became such a big part of medicine.

Radical Activists Are Corrupting the MCAT

The MCAT is the gold-standard test for admission to medical school. Surprise, surprise, it’s also a target of radical activists. They claim the test is racist, which has led to dozens of schools dropping MCAT requirements for many minority applicants – a direct threat to physician quality. But they’re also taking another tack that will lead to worse physicians: Putting divisive ideology into the MCAT itself.

We recently looked through materials from the Association of American Medical Colleges, which administers the MCAT. On a page titled, “What’s on the MCAT exam,” it clearly states that applicants may be asked to identify “the most appropriate way to assess prejudice in a study on implicit bias.” This presupposes that implicit bias is real, even though implicit bias testing has been debunked and the concept is used to justify discriminatory policies. Another section focuses on “prejudice and bias,” including “power, prestige, and class.” This is testing for political views, not medical knowledge.

It gets worse. The MCAT now has content on “social inequality,” which focuses on “the segment of the population that is disenfranchised or lacks power.” It blames “institutionalized racism and discrimination” for this supposed problem, while stating that “social justice” is “essential to address health and health care disparities.” Again, this is divisive ideology, not medical education.

The list keeps going. Another section focuses on the “social determinants of health,” which is part of the push to get medical students to focus on political issues like food stamps, housing policy, and the like. Yet that’s not what future physicians need to know. Even the AMA agrees that physicians have no power to change the patient’s “social condition.” Treating individual patients is all that matters.

The MCAT should be free of identity politics and radical ideology, so that it accurately tests future physicians for their knowledge of medicine. Alas, that’s the last thing activists want. They want to kill the MCAT, either by preventing people from taking it or corrupting the test from the inside. Either way, patients will suffer from the lowering of standards.
Have you seen identity politics in the MCAT? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.

Will Mass General Kick Non-Woke Patients To The Curb?

Mass General is one of Boston’s premier hospitals. It may also be moving toward refusing care to patients who don’t adhere to the woke worldview. That’s what it looks like based on the note Mass General is now sending its patients.

A tipster sent us a copy of the note, which is also available on Mass General’s website as the “Patient Code of Conduct.” On its surface, the hospital seems to be upholding a sensible policy: “Words or actions that are disrespectful, racist, discriminatory, hostile, or harassing are not welcome.” 

Everyone can agree that racism, discrimination, and harassment don’t belong in a medical setting, much less anywhere else. But the problem is that Mass General fails to define these terms, so there’s no indication who decides what constitutes a violation. As we’ve seen, medical leaders are thoroughly steeped in woke ideology. They are likely to take a dim view of anyone who doesn’t toe the party line.

From the MGH Patient Code of Conduct.

Will patients who don’t use someone’s preferred pronouns be guilty of “harassment”? Will someone who disputes the existence of “systemic racism” be called a racist? Will a patient who believes in equal access to care, not “equity,” be deemed discriminatory? What if they oppose preferential access to care for minority patients, as has been announced at Boston-based Brigham and Women’s hospital?

These aren’t idle questions in the hyper-politicized world of woke healthcare. And patients at Mass General should be concerned about the consequences of running afoul of the hospital’s new policy:

“Some violations of this Code may lead to patients being asked to make other plans for their care.”

There’s a very real possibility that patients will be refused care at Mass General. The only way to ensure they get treated is to give into the politicization of medicine, race, and everything else that woke ideology demands. Mass General should make clear what its policy really means, before patients suffer.

Does your hospital or doctor’s office engage in politicized healthcare? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.

ABIM Doubles Down On Extremism

We were the first to highlight that the American Board of Internal Medicine is falling prey to divisive identity politics. Yet despite our public campaign to call out this crisis, ABIM is rushing even further toward divisive and discriminatory ideology. That includes plans to force every ABIM-certified physician to answer “health equity” questions in their regular assessments.

A tipster recently sent us the details of ABIM’s latest moves. The prominent medical association is promising to address “racism in health care,” especially through the assessments that internal medicine specialists must take every 10 years. ABIM is wants to change them to “examin[e] our own potential bias and working to mitigate whatever we find,” and ensuring that they “do not create an unfair barrier for physicians to enter practice.” 

ABIM will accomplish these goals by adding “health equity” questions to its assessments. It states: “By incorporating health equity questions on our exams in the future, we elevate the topic for practicing physicians and for organizations that are training physicians.” Yet health equity is an inherently politicized concept. It is based on the fact-free belief that healthcare suffers from “systemic racism” and requires race-based decision-making – i.e., racial discrimination – in response. 

By taking this path, ABIM is pushing physicians to fixate on their patients’ race instead of their unique medical needs. Worse, it’s laying the groundwork for preferential care based on skin color – something that’s already moving forward elsewhere in healthcare.

What’s more, ABIM is asking its members to share “personal stories of how health inequities” have “affected you and/or your patients.” It will highlight these stories on its social media accounts, adding to the drumbeat of claims that healthcare is racist, and justifying its own attempts to put divisive ideology at the heart of internal medicine.

ABIM should be better than this. It’s not, and now the question is how far it will fall.

This Florida Med School’s Trainings Are Extreme

Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine is sinking into the radicalized abyss. That’s what we discovered after submitting several Freedom of Information requests to the college. Our digging turned up some of the most extreme and divisive faculty and staff trainings we’ve seen to date.

To start, FAU has two extremely offensive videos. The first is entitled, “What Does Critical Race Theory Have to Do with Academic Medicine?” and was presented on November 30, 2021 by Anita Fernander, Chief Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Officer at the Schmidt College of Medicine. It brazenly states that Critical Race Theory – which is grounded in racist ideas and encourages racial discrimination – “should be applied within academic medicine to provide context for understanding and addressing racial health disparities.” 

The rest of the video forces this divisive worldview on viewers, while leveling accusations of “white supremacy,” among other insults and untruths.

The second video is called “What Makes ‘Systemic Racism’ Systemic?” by Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University’s Department of Sociology. His presentation from January 28, 2022 hits viewers over the head with thoughts like these:

This is a slide from Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s presentation. Full copies of the documents and videos obtained through FOIA are available upon request.
  • “In truth, the way that the police, as an organization, was historically developed in the US as an organization in charge of keeping class and racial control.”
  • “Whites, your life reflects and reproduces whiteness.”
  • “The moment you think you are saved is the moment that whiteness will get deeper into your soul.”
  • “Systemic racism is you.” 

In short, the video on “systemic racism” itself expresses racist views. And of course, it tells viewers about the “need for social protest.” What political advocacy has to do with medical education is never stated.

Through another Freedom of Information request, we found that Florida Atlantic University also uses training materials from the “Racial Equity Institute,” like many other medical schools. That includes a 3-hour presentation focused on the “structural and institutional nature of racism in America.” Unsurprisingly, these training materials are incredibly divisive and have more to do with radical identity politics than medical education. 

What’s happening at Florida Atlantic University’s medical school is embarrassing and extraordinary. The families whose students go there – and the taxpayers who fund it – deserve to know what’s happening. And they should demand that it stop.

Have you seen divisive and politically motivated trainings at your medical school? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.

SHRM Should Be Ashamed

The Society for Human Resource Management is the leading voice for HR professionals – and it’s using that voice to push a divisive, race-based agenda.

A tipster recently sent us a copy of a SHRM Webinar from October. Sponsored by Aetna, which is part of CVS Health, the webinar was entitled: “Addressing Health Inequities In the Workforce.” The webinar itself is centered on the idea that racism and discrimination are rife in healthcare. 

The webinar uses this pretext to push even discriminatory policies and practices. For instance, the moderator states that “diversity and inclusion are critical; you can’t get to health equity without it.” He also calls it “more than a moral imperative; it’s a business imperative.” This is a pretext for hiring people based on their skin color. Yet sacrificing merit for diversity could lead to worse health outcomes.

One webinar presenter also calls for “increased collection of race and ethnicity data of employees.” Another presenter states that “every business decision should be made through an equity lens.” In other words, SHRM wants healthcare employers to fixate on race to the exclusion of everything else.

The moderator also asks what organizations can do to make health equity a reality. The answer, from a presenter who works at the major consulting firm Deloitte: 

“The key here is having a strategy that has clear goals and measures that are tied to those goals. We’ve seen a lot of impact when there’s performance incentives tied to the health equity goal. It needs an all-enterprise approach so that everyone has to be invested in that kind of change; so bonuses and other ways to tie incentives are important.”

Don’t be surprised if your healthcare provider or employer takes this advice. Physicians and employees may soon be paid (or punished) according to how much they focus on people’s race. If only the Society for Human Resource Management was this concerned about individual health and well-being. SHRM should be ashamed.

Sign This Declaration To Defend Academic Freedom At Medical Schools

Are you a medical educator worried about the rise of divisive ideology at your medical school? If so, please consider signing a new declaration on “Restoring Academic Freedom.” Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb has already added his name, and we hope you’ll consider doing the same.

The declaration is not directed solely to medical schools, but it certainly describes what’s happening there:

The mission of the university is the pursuit of truth and the advancement and dissemination of knowledge. A robust culture of free speech and academic freedom is essential to that mission: Intellectual progress often threatens the status quo and is resisted. Bad ideas are only weeded out by unfettered critical analysis.

Unfortunately, academic freedom and freedom of speech are rapidly declining in academic institutions, including universities, professional societies, journals, and funding agencies. Researchers whose findings challenge dominant narratives find it increasingly hard to get published, funded, hired, or promoted. They, and teachers who question current orthodoxies, are harassed in person and online, ostracized, subjected to opaque university disciplinary procedures, fired, or canceled by other means. Employment, promotion, and funding are increasingly subject to implicit or explicit political litmus tests, including approval from bureaucrats seeking to impose a social agenda such as specific views of social justice or DEI principles. Activism is replacing inquiry and debate.  An increasing number of simple facts and ideas cannot even be mentioned without risk of retribution.

It further states:

Universities and professional societies are failing to resist such illiberal forces–which have arisen many times throughout history, from all sides of the political spectrum –and to defend academic freedom and freedom of speech.

The Declaration also lays out a variety of steps you can take to fight these trends, including joining organizations like Do No Harm. 

To sign the Declaration, simply add your name and affiliation to the end of this document. Thank you for standing with Do No Harm, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, and so many others to defend academic freedom from divisive ideology – at medical schools and across society.

The University of Minnesota’s Discrimination Runs Deep

Remember how the University of Minnesota Medical School is forcing students to swear oaths to woke ideology? It turns out the school’s commitment to divisive and even discriminatory ideas runs even deeper. That’s why Do No Harm has filed three complaints against the school with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Our civil rights complaints target three explicitly discriminatory things at the medical school:

  1. The “Diversity in Pediatrics Visiting Student Elective Award.” This award, which offers funding and mentorship opportunities, is sold as a way of creating a more diverse student body. Yet to quality, students must belong “to a historically excluded group (under-represented in medicine) including Black/African-American, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, Filipino, Hmong, Vietnamese, and/or mainland Puerto Rican.” Such discrimination cannot be squared with the Constitution or federal law.
  1. The “BIPOC Faculty and Staff Welcome and Reception.” This event (archived link), which occurred in September, was only open to “faculty and staff that identify as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color.” The name for that is racial discrimination, and that’s illegal.
  1. The “CTSI/Medical School Early Career Research Award.” This award aims to increase diversity in tenure-track faculty and includes more than $500,000 in funding. Yet applicants must “be from an NIH-recognized URM group defined as Black or African American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Hispanic or Latino, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders, and those with disabilities, defined as physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Such discrimination cannot be squared with the Constitution or federal law.

It’s no surprise that a medical school that requires woke oaths also discriminates by race in pursuit of woke goals. If the University of Minnesota doesn’t change course, then the federal Office for Civil Rights should force it to.

Divisive Identity Politics at UCLA

Want to work at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine? First, you have to go through divisive, race-based indoctrination. Then you have to commit to “combat[ting] structural racism.” In other words, yet another prominent medical school is downplaying medical education in favor of political brainwashing.

A tipster recently sent us proof of UCLA’s decline. Professors and staff are now required to take a training course entitled “Transforming Our Community: An Introduction to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Concepts.” Yet these concepts are part of the activist push to lower standards of medical education and justify discriminatory care, supposedly in the name of righting past wrongs.

If you don’t take the training, you could be fired, since “being compliant with all trainings is a condition of employment.” 

UCLA went even further by announcing an “anti-racism roadmap,” which represents a “collective commitment” by all professors and staff. The roadmap is a “co-created path toward racial justice, equity, diversity and inclusion” and has $5 million in funding to fight “structural racism.” It seeks to change how the Geffen School of Medicine operates, pushing it in the direction of divisive political advocacy.

As part of this effort, UCLA is putting “equity, diversity, and inclusion” into everything from accounting and data, to education and training, to admissions and selection. It even wants to change how the school does research and delivers clinical care at affiliated hospitals and providers. 

The UCLA Geffen School of Medicine is fully bought into the same divisive and discriminatory ideology that’s sweeping the rest of healthcare. Pity the professors who must accept it, the medical students who must learn it, and the patients will suffer from it.

Is race-based identity politics all the rage at your medical school? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.

Two Investigations for Discrimination Are Underway at Baylor College of Medicine

There are more tricks than treats coming out of Baylor College of Medicine (BCOM) in Houston. 

Do No Harm Senior Fellow Mark Perry filed two civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) regarding multiple programs at Baylor College of Medicine that illegally discriminate on the basis of race and/or sex in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibit such discrimination. As a result of the complaints two federal civil rights investigations vs. BCOM have recently been opened by the Dallas OCR. 

The Department of Emergency Medicine’s Underrepresented in Medicine (URiM) Visiting Student Scholarship offers four $1,500 scholarships to cover expenses for medical students who are accepted to the month-long internship. Additionally, because the program is restricted to “those whose background are underrepresented in medicine,” the 2021 Black Alumni and 2021 Latinx Alumni sponsored two $1,000 scholarships for the program. 

Four more programs from BCOM are being investigated by the Dallas Office for Civil Rights due to eligibility requirements being restricted to students from “an eligible underrepresented minority population.” Worse yet, these programs are funded by grants administered by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), which mandates that applicants must be from one of the following underrepresented minority populations: Blacks or African-Americans, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Eskimos, Aleuts, Native Hawaiians or Other Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics or Latinos. These programs include:

Have you been excluded from a scholarship or fellowship at your medical or nursing school because of discriminatory inclusion criteria? Do No Harm wants to hear from you, and you may remain anonymous if you wish.

Do No Harm Submits Comments on the Treatment of Gender Dysphoria

The Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine hosted a public meeting to discuss standards for the treatment of gender dysphoria.
Do No Harm submitted the following comment:
Do No Harm Comments in Florida

S1E1: Medical Schools as Institutions

In this inaugural episode, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb joins Benita Cotton-Orr to share his personal journey from practitioner to educator. Stan shares how he became aware – tragically – of the transformation of American medical education into a focus on social justice, “anti-racism,” and “diversity” at the expense of learning the basic science and clinical science that is necessary to treat patients under the best possible conditions.

The Main Med School Application Prefers Diversity Over Quality

Not diverse enough? Good luck getting into medical school. That’s the reality of the upcoming version of the American Medical College Application Service, or AMCAS, which every applicant must take. A medical school administrator tipped us off to what may be in it. The application is clearly being designed to discover your race, background, and beliefs—not how qualified you are to be a physician.

The current AMCAS is bad enough. It asks applicants to state their gender identity and pronouns. Why? Simple: “These questions are intended to provide medical schools with information about the many ways an applicant could contribute to institutional diversity.” Forget qualifications—identity matters more.

The AMCAS also asks you to describe your “childhood information.” That includes whether your area was “medically underserved” and whether your family has received federal or state assistance programs. Applicants are asked to list their family’s income level, how many people lived in their household, and whether the applicant had to contribute to the family’s income. 

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These questions have nothing to do with someone’s ability to be a physician. The only real conclusion is that medical schools are trying to recruit people based on other metrics.

Yet what’s coming is even worse. According to our tipster, the Association of American Medical Colleges, which runs the AMCAS, intends to add “Social Justice/Advocacy” to the list of acceptable answers under “work experience.” In other words, applicants will be able to list politicking and radicalism as a reason they should be let into medical school.

What’s happening to the AMCAS is further proof of the decline of standards in medical education—and the rise of ideology, grounded in the belief that skin color and beliefs matter more than ability and merit. Patients should worry about the quality of their next physician.

Were you rejected from a medical school or training program because you weren’t diverse enough? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.

Indoctrination at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center

It’s no secret that so-called “anti-racist” trainings and presentations are chock-full of divisive concepts that don’t belong in healthcare. But one event for physicians at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center may be the worst we’ve ever seen. A tipster shared the whole video with us, and it’s a doozy.

The presentation, entitled “Racism: A Societal Pathogen,” was held in 2021. The speaker, Dr. Adiaha I. A. Spinks-Franklin, declares herself to be an “ardent anti-racist,” and over the course of 70 minutes, she proves it. The whole point of the presentation is to “plant a seed of anti-racism,” even though this woke concept requires racial discrimination in the name of righting past wrongs.

One slide asks physicians, “what composes racism?” It depicts an iceberg with “visible” racism on top, including things like “microaggressions” and “people saying mean things.” The “invisible” forms of racism are more numerous, ranging from “stop and frisk” to “colorblindness” to “gentrification.” What this has to do with healthcare is never stated.

Another slide dives into “racism’s different forms.” The list includes “colorblind racism,” “gendered racism,” “environmental racism,” “cultural racism (whiteness),” and “medical racism.”

True to its name, the presentation repeatedly describes racism as a “pathogen.” It “requires a host to survive,” a “mode of transmission,” a “mechanism of replication,” and a “means of causing disease.” The host, it turns out, is the physicians themselves. Apparently “most healthcare providers are just like most people in the United States,” which is to say, inherently racist. Various slides explore the life cycle of this “pathogen.”

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Finally, the presentation turns to the need for “treatment.” It urges all physicians to take the Implicit Association Test, which has been thoroughly debunked. It calls on all organizations to create a “DEI Department.” And it calls for new policies and practices at every level of healthcare, which includes an effort to “decolonize medical education.” 

Connecticut Children’s should be ashamed for offering this presentation. It’s insulting to physicians and a clear attempt to indoctrinate people in extreme racial ideology. Physicians and patients alike will suffer as similar trainings continue to spread across healthcare.

Does your medical employer or school have absurd woke training requirements or presentations? Please let us know – securely and anonymously.