Health Affairs Runs Our Ad – And Admits the Truth

Do No Harm is grateful to Health Affairs for two reasons.

First, the prestigious medical journal which calls itself the “bible of health policy” ran our advertisement in its latest issue. The ad asks, “What is anti-racism?” and asks readers to contact Do No Harm if they’ve seen the discriminatory and divisive policies that anti-racism demands. It’s good for Health Affairs readers to encounter ideas that aren’t steeped in woke ideology, and it’s unusual for a publication or institution committed to “anti-racism” to allow the presence of a dissenting opinion.

The second reason we’re grateful is this: Health Affairs has clearly admitted its subordination of science to politics.

Alongside our ad, the journal ran a long note from its editor, Alan Weil, explaining why Health Affairs accepted an ad it finds “objectionable” and defending the racialist approach his journal has taken to scientific publishing. Much of the statement is a repetition of hackneyed, empty slogans such as declaring the Journal’s “commitment to being anti-racist and dismantling systems that disadvantage certain populations.”

Dr. Weil asks what our goal is at Do No Harm. Our answer is an equitable society – one committed to the values of liberalism and equality, not “anti-racism.” An equitable society is not one in which fellowships such as the one Health Affairs offers are only for people of a certain skin color (contrary to the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of the civil rights laws). It is not one where the skin color of authors and reviewers is collected for whatever purpose.

Dr. Weil asked us for proof that Health Affairs had brought “race and other non-academic factors into the peer review process.” We supplied his own article to support that claim. The link speaks volumes. In that article, he states that it is his duty to “advance equity in scholarly publishing” and he acknowledges that he is recruiting authors and reviewers simply because of their skin color and not because of their expertise.

The example he then provides is of requiring a Native American to review a scientific paper about Native American health – a deep corruption of the scientific enterprise, and one that will undermine the essential nature of the peer review process, whose purpose is to ensure rigor, impartiality, and excellence. 

We’ll continue to sound the alarms when Health Affairs or any other organization accuses the entire medical field of “systemic racism,” “implicit bias,” or any other broad-brush attack against the decency and integrity of tens of thousands of health care practitioners in this country who care for the sick with no regard for the color of their skin. Making “anti-racism” a pillar of healthcare means making racial discrimination, demoralized clinicians, politicized standards, and patient mistrust the pillars of American healthcare.

Must Read: The Corruption Of Medicine

Finally, public attention is focusing on woke discrimination and division in healthcare. The latest proof comes courtesy of Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald, who wrote about this dangerous trend in City Journal’s Summer 2022 issue.

Heather correctly writes:

Virtually every major medical organization—from the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) to the American Association of Pediatrics—has embraced the idea that medicine is an inequity-producing enterprise.

This view is leading the medical establishment to abandon excellence in favor of diversity: “Medical schools and medical societies are discarding traditional standards of merit in order to alter the demographic characteristics of their profession.” 

Heather walks through the many examples where standards are being waived or lowered, including the MCAT, which shapes medical school admissions, and the USMLE Step One, which plays a major role in residency assignments. She also notes that when Do No Harm chairman Dr. Stan Goldfarb called out the danger of this approach, he was widely attacked by the activists who now control the medical establishment.

Heather also shows how the quality of medical students is declining, especially as they focus more on activism. And she notes that ideology is leading to worse medical research:

It matters who heads research ventures and medical faculties. Top scientists can identify the most promising directions of study and organize the most productive research teams. But the diversity push is discouraging some scientists from competing at all. 

What is the result of the corruption of medicine? Worse physicians, worse medical research, and worse health outcomes for patients. Thank you, Heather MacDonald, for joining Do No Harm in pointing out the facts that Americans need to know.

This Missouri Medical School Is Violating Civil Rights

Add the University of Missouri School of Medicine to the growing list of medical schools that violate students’ civil rights. 

Do No Harm has filed an official complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against the university. It alleges that the program engages in racially discriminatory practices in its internal scholarship program.

The School of Medicine’s financial aid office manages ten scholarships that are awarded only to students it describes as “underrepresented” or “minority.” 

“First preference” for these scholarships, it says, “shall be given to African-American and/or Hispanic students.” It specifically identifies “underrepresented minorities” as “blacks, Native Americans (that is American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), Mexican Americans, and mainland Puerto Ricans.”

These limits on who may receive a scholarship violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and Do No Harm is asking the Office of Civil Rights to swiftly investigate and correct the unfair and unlawful actions of the Mizzou School of Medicine. The university must be held accountable for its flagrant racial discrimination, which is also prohibited by the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

Do No Harm works to protect the healthcare industry and individual practitioners against divisive ideologies and practices and calls on others to do so. If you are aware of a discriminatory scholarship or policy at your medical or nursing school, or if you didn’t apply because you thought you were not eligible, please let us know.

The AAMC’s Supreme Court Shenanigans

The Association of American Medical Colleges wants medical schools to discriminate on the basis of race. That’s the reality of the amicus brief the AAMC just filed with the Supreme Court. The case is Students for Fair Admission v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, but every medical school in the country will be affected by the outcome. The Supreme Court must side against racial discrimination.

The AAMC supports Harvard’s system of preferential treatment (i.e., discrimination) for applicants in its Supreme Court brief. No wonder: Most medical schools are moving to prioritize some racial and ethnic minorities applicants over others. Yet the AAMC’s claimed scientific and medical grounds for such overt discrimination are non-existent.

In its brief, the AAMC asserts that “diversity is vital to healthcare outcomes.” This assertion reflects the woke belief in “racial concordance,” which involves patients seeing physicians of the same race, ethnicity, or gender. To achieve such concordance, the argument goes, medical schools need to recruit more diverse students. In support of this extraordinary claim – which essentially justifies segregation in healthcare – the AAMC cites two studies without telling the true story.

The first study involved a survey of University of Virginia medical students on their attitudes about the biologic characteristics of black and white patients. It found that 50 percent of medical students thought, erroneously, that black patients have fewer nerve endings and thicker skin than white patients and therefore would perceive less pain. Yet the AAMC doesn’t note that only first and second-year students made this mistake. The University of Virginia successfully corrected these students’ error, helping them provide the best care to black patients.

The second study regards racial concordance between black babies and black neonatologists, yet the AAMC doesn’t acknowledge its widely identified flaws. First, the study authors could not identify the race of all the doctors involved in the care. Second, patient outcomes depended on the team caring for the patient. If an emergency occurred at 3 a.m., it was not the attending physician who cared for the patient, but rather nurses and on-call physicians. Third, the data didn’t account for physicians who transferred the sickest babies to academic hospitals, which involves higher mortality due to underlying conditions. This information was not factored into the study, discrediting its conclusions.

Most importantly, the AAMC completely ignores the large body of literature that contradicts the claim that doctor/patient racial concordance leads to better clinical outcomes. Notably, a large 2011 study used a database of 22,000 patients to show that racial concordance between doctors and patients does not produce meaningful improvements in health outcomes.

Add it all up, and what do you get? The AAMC is baselessly justifying racial discrimination in medical school admissions, while dangerously promoting racial segregation in medical practice. Hopefully the Supreme Court will see through this charade and ensure that medical schools admit students based on skill, not skin color.

Have you seen discrimination practices in the name of “diversity” at your medical school? Please contact us, securely and anonymously.

Alert: Medical Education Is Now Officially Indoctrination

Medical students will soon be forced to learn the most aggressive and radical version of woke ideology. That’s the reality of the new “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies” rolled out this month by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which essentially oversees what medical schools teach.

Why should you care? Because what happens in medical school ultimately shapes all of healthcare. The AAMC can enforce these competencies – which are basically the standards that students are expected to learn – by making them part of school accreditation and then testing students for them in the MCAT. Future physicians will be expected to regurgitate and practice things that have nothing to do with treating patients.

Here’s a small slice of the radicalism embedded within these competencies:

  • Intersectionality: Medical school graduates must “demonstrate… evidence of self-reflection and how one’s personal identities, biases, and lived experience” influence clinical practice.
  • Oppression: Graduates must understand a “patient’s multiple identities and how each may result in varied and multiple forms of oppression.”
  • White Privilege: Graduates must identify “systems of power, privilege and oppression,” including “white privilege, racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, religious oppression.”
  • Non-Healthcare Factors: Graduates must “identify and address social risk factors,” like “food security, housing, utilities, transportation.”
  • Race as a Social Construct: Graduates must “articulate race as a social construct that is a cause of health and health care inequities.”
  • Anti-Colonialism: Graduates must “describe… the impact of various systems of oppression,” including “colonialism” and “assimilation.”

It keeps getting worse. The competencies also cover allyship, implicit bias, you name it. And residency graduates and training physicians are covered, too. 

The former must translate concepts like “anti-racism” into clinical practice, which means discriminating on the basis of race, either by providing different levels of access to or standards of care. The latter must be “role models” for medical students, showing them how to “engage with systems to disrupt oppressive practices.” For students, there will be no escape from the brainwashing.

If these competencies are implemented, today’s medical students, who are tomorrow’s medical professionals, are going to be some of the worst woke activists in America. Students, parents, professors, policymakers – if people don’t intervene and demand that medical schools teaching medicine, then healthcare will completely collapse into a radical, racially divisive mess that hurts patients in the name of helping them.

Is wokeness already being force-fed at your medical school? Let us know – securely and anonymously.

This Is The Woke Endgame in Healthcare

We’re often asked: What do woke activists ultimately want from healthcare? A big part of the answer can be found in a new scholarly paper published in the prestigious journal, Academic Medicine. It’s as radical as it is sweeping, grounded fully in Critical Race Theory. Ultimately, the woke vision has nothing to do with healthcare – and everything to do with divisive ideology.

The paper is titled, “The REPAIR Project: A Prospectus for Change Toward Racial Justice in Medical Education and Health Sciences Research.” The acronym REPAIR stands for “Reparations and Anti-Institutional Racism.” Sure enough, reparations is one of the organizing themes: “The theme of medical reparations builds on the longstanding call for slavery reparations.”

Another theme is “abolition,” which “examines the intersections of incarceration, policing, and surveillance in health care and the role of clinicians in furthering or stopping oppressive practices.” The final major theme is “decolonizing the health sciences,” which “targets ‘othering’ practices entrenched in scientific methodologies that have arisen from colonial-era beliefs and practices around imperialism.”

Practically speaking, this vision “calls for an end to police violence and the torture of Black people,” while “compelling physicians to intervene to prevent such violence.” It also means “questioning the use of armed police for security in hospitals,” which “turns healing places into sites of risk not just for undocumented, paroled, or profiled individuals.”

What’s more, the paper “calls on physicians working in the criminal legal system to simultaneously advocate for ending racial incarceration.” And it says “clinicians working in prisons can become complicit in advancing racialized incarceration practices by providing and/or withholding health care for the incarcerated.”

The paper’s authors explicitly state their goal: “transforming medical education, clinical training, and health sciences research,” which will ultimately transform all of healthcare. They also state they’ve “learned that a tightly organized and passionate group of students and faculty can make impactful changes at a medical institution with amenable leadership, particularly during moments of popular protest.” 

Perhaps the only good thing the authors write is that “bringing critical theory concepts” (which means Critical Race Theory) “into medical education and practice remains a considerable challenge.” If physicians and patients continue to push back on this radical agenda, that challenge will grow – and for the health and well-being of the American people, it must grow, fast.

The American Board of Internal Medicine Is Sick with Hypocrisy

That’s the sad reality as American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation hosts its Forum in Colorado Springs, from July 30th to August 2nd. The Board and its Foundation are actively undermining medical professionals and patients while claiming to empower them – to the point of endorsing discrimination, spreading misinformation, and lowering the standards of medical care and training.

Every American should care about this rank hypocrisy. ABIM not only certifies physicians and influences the care that patients receive, it also helps set priorities for the nation’s healthcare leaders. If physicians and patients don’t demand better, this storied organization will be responsible for hurting the health and well-being of millions.

The problem with ABIM and the ABIM Foundation is simple: They’re now putting identity politics and radical racial ideology ahead of medical professionalism and excellence. They rightly point out that health disparities exist among communities of color, but the solutions the Board and Foundation advocate couldn’t be more wrong. They’re as disturbing as they are destructive:

  • ABIM is spreading misinformation and eroding trust. The Foundation says it is focused on “combatting misinformation” and “building trust,” yet ABIM promotes demonstrably false concepts such as “implicit bias,” which tells patients they can’t trust physicians who don’t look like them. The Board also accuses healthcare of failing to practice “equitable, evidence-based medicine,” using evidence that doesn’t withstand even minimal scrutiny. At a time when physician burnout is at an all-time high, ABIM should back up such statements with proof. 
  • ABIM is lowering standards. After spending so much time and money maintaining medical standards, ABIM has made a stunning reversal in the name of diversity. The Board and Foundation partner with groups that support lower standards for medical school applicants. They want physicians to spend scarce time and resources on divisive political issues at the expense of clinical focus. ABIM has been hijacked by extremists and is now unmoored from its mission of improving the medical profession and all patients’ health.

This is no way to promote equal access and improve health outcomes for communities of color. Physicians and patients deserve to know that the American Board of Internal Medicine and its Foundation are hurting the people they claim to help.

How can the American Board of Internal Medicine cure itself?

  • Renounce anti-racism and its call for racial discrimination.
  • Renounce implicit bias, systemic racism, and unproven claims that undermine patient and provider trust.
  • Commit to raising standards, not lowering them by putting diversity ahead of quality and safety. 

Are you a member of ABIM?

Do you have ABIM certification?

Have you attended an ABIM Foundation summer forum? 

If you’ve witnessed or suffered from this hypocrisy that’s undermining patient health and medical professionals, Do No Harm wants to hear from you – and help you. 

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A Dishonorable End To A Medical Honor Society

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Pity the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. At the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, the 120-year-old institution has now been hollowed out by woke activists. Apparently the society’s entire purpose – which is to recognize outstanding student achievement – is incompatible with the demands of diversity. 

Here’s the backstory. Last year, the Perelman school convened a taskforce on Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA). Its goal was to “promote racial equity and less competition among students,” while also determining the future of the honor society on campus. The taskforce released its ruling on July 20th, and while AOA will still be allowed to exist, it will not be allowed to reward the best students when it matters most.

Under the new system, AOA can still induct medical students on an annual basis. But it can no longer do so before those students are matched with their residency and training programs. The reason? The school doesn’t want the most qualified students to get accepted to residency programs ahead of others, especially those who are “under-represented in medicine.” 

Rarely will you see more blatant disregard for merit – or a more brazen elevation of diversity above quality. Dr. Stan Goldfarb, Do No Harm’s chairman and Perelman’s former associate dean of curriculum, has spent years pointing out these dangerous trends. The medical honor society (and the outstanding students it recognizes) deserve better than this dishonorable attack.

Pediatricians Don’t Need Identity Politics

A tipster recently sent us an email from the American Board of Pediatrics. Like so many other medical associations, the board – which oversees the physicians who care for our kids – is fully bought into the woke agenda.

The email involves “maintenance of certification” credit, which is required for pediatricians who want to maintain their license. In the email, the board urges pediatricians to claim credit for DEI-related education, in reference to the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” ideology that’s central to woke identity politics.

The board makes this stunning claim:

“The ABP understands that racism and other forms of discrimination contribute to health inequities among children of color and other under-represented groups.”

American Board of Pediatrics

Translation: Pediatricians need to be re-educated to stop them from being racist. Yet the board offers no proof that pediatricians are racist, biased, or anything else.

More to the point, the board is pushing ideas grounded in “anti-racism,” which demands discrimination on the basis of race. In the context of medicine, that means offering different levels of access and standards of care to people of different skin colors.

That’s right: The American Board of Pediatrics is implicitly endorsing racial discrimination while claiming to oppose it. This is a direct threat to the health and well-being of American children – and parents and physicians alike should demand better.

Have you seen the woke agenda at your pediatrician or doctor’s office? If so, please let us know – anonymously and securely.

Things Keep Getting Worse at This Indiana Medical School

The Indiana University School of Medicine is forcing educators to waste time on woke ideology instead of focusing on student instruction or real professional development. How do we know? An insider recently sent us proof. 

Earlier this year, an administrator in the Department of Medicine sent the following note to colleagues:

“The department strives to advance our core values of diversity, equity and inclusion.  We are requesting both our faculty leaders and staff leaders (Managers and above) within our Divisions/Service Lines to spend a minimum of 2 hours on DEI focused professional development throughout the 2022 calendar year.”

That’s right: Senior faculty and staff must spend at least two hours learning woke ideology every year. The clear implication is that they should spend even more time. Yet every hour they spend on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is an hour they don’t spend developing their medical knowledge or ability to teach students. 

Then there are the specific courses that faculty can take. Among others, the list includes:

  • How to Engage Meaningfully in Allyship and Anti-Racism
  • Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging for All
  • Advocating for Change in Your Organization
  • Strategies to Foster Inclusive Language at Work

IUSM also requires “Unconscious Bias, Microaggressions, and Microresistance Training.” At no point does IUSM pretend this faculty indoctrination has anything to do with medicine, because it doesn’t. But it has everything to do with identity politics. 

This mandate will hurt faculty by forcing them to spend time on ideology instead of education, while also spreading that ideology to their peers. It will hurt the medical students these educators teach. And it will inevitably hurt patients, who expect medical schools to teach medicine, not woke malarky.

Are you a medical school professor, student, or trainee? Let us know if you see wokeness.

This Medical School Wants a Wokeness Czar

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The University of Washington School of Medicine is hiring a wokeness czar. That’s the reality of a new job posting for an “Assistant Dean for Equity and Medical Student Engagement.” The position isn’t filled, but it’s already clear the school is devoting precious resources to political indoctrination instead of medical education.

The job description for this position reads like a woke playbook:

  • The Assistant Dean will “provide oversight to medical student affinity groups,” which are generally organized on the basis of race.
  • The person will prioritize the “recruitment and retention of underrepresented and disadvantaged students,” which typically requires lowering standards for admission. 
  • He or she will work with a variety of “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committees,” which exist for the sole purpose of forcing woke ideas on faculty and students alike.

Most notably, candidates are expected to understand the “impacts of structural and institutional racism on medical student recruitment, well-being and equity.” Translation: They must be fully bought into the woke worldview that racism is everywhere and overt racial discrimination is the best solution.

It’s bad enough that the University of Washington Medical School created this inherently politicized position. But what makes it worse is how the school is spending its money, which includes tuition dollars as well as public funding. Students, families, and taxpayers pay for this medical school on the assumption that it will teach people to become the best physicians possible. Instead, this institution is ensuring students are brainwashed with woke ideology. 

Is your medical school embracing identity politics from the top down? If so, please let us know – anonymously and safely.

A Med Student Just Sent Us This Amazing Note

We recently received this note from a medical student. We are keeping their identity anonymous per their request.

I am a medical student at what is widely regarded as an elite academic institution. I came to medical school in search of a broader understanding of scientific truth and a deeper understanding of how the world works. But the field of Medicine, through its inextricable connection to academia, is instead propagating and rationalizing sociopolitical ideologies through a pseudoscientific lens. It is now willing to supersede the Hippocratic Oath.

This fact has become increasingly apparent to me since I entered medical school. I was immediately bombarded with critical race theory talking points. Students are encouraged to go on an intellectual scavenger hunt for racism, with the aim of identifying racism as the core factor underpinning every medical and scientific discovery and practice. Professors facilitated critical theory exercises where students must consider their intersectional immutable characteristics, thus implicitly identifying themselves as inherently oppressed, or inherently an oppressor among different dimensions. I have also had to attend many propagandistic and self-flagellating lectures on unconscious bias, systemic racism, etc. 

Aside from critical race theory, the medical school has taken clear positions on many controversial political issues, supporting what many view to be directly injurious to others. This includes radical abortion policy, chemical castration of children, authoritarian COVID policy, and other ideas which make a mockery of the framework of evidence-based medicine and the system of medical ethics that lay the foundation for Western medicine. Many of these positions are made explicit through public statements and direct influence of public policy, while some positions are established through internal memos as well as curricular components. 

Medical school leaders have openly supported participating in local violent BLM riots (being careful to pretend that there was no violence, of course), and routinely send out false and inflammatory statements about explosive political issues. As you might expect, dissent, or even questioning, of any of these viewpoints immediately evokes rage from other students and consternation from professors. 

Equally concerning, the time spent discussing these topics detracts from the time needed to cover medical concepts. In my estimation, I have had to attend more lectures on pronouns and left-wing politics than on kidney diseases. At the current rate, I will have a better understanding of how men get pregnant than how women get pregnant. 

Not only is this ideological rip-current creating the current cataclysm of public distrust in medical and scientific institutions, but it also brews partisan malcontent and destroys good faith debate among students and faculty. Of central curiosity to me, why are medical students allowing this takeover? Surely, not all must agree with these propositions. In my experience, a large percentage of medical students disagree with at least one of these objectives. Many students find these ideas to be illogical, recognizing that a substantial amount of time is being wasted with political nonsense, and they also realize that speaking up amounts to academic suicide. 

More strikingly, however, is that most students fail to recognize the gravity that these issues have on a societal level. They are willfully ignorant of the potent social harms and collateral damage that will ensue en route to the fatally flawed utopian vision of wokeism, including a new age of racial discrimination and authoritarianism. 

Many others are willing to play along with these issues on a simplistic level, careful to avoid identifying the nuances that may get them in trouble. It is easier for students to simply not think too hard. After all, developing a deeper understanding of the history and tenants of gender theory in order to contest these positions will waste even more time. Most students, understandably, do not see that as a valuable use of time when there are real, complex diseases to study.  

Medical schools, and universities more broadly, rely on the assumption that students will tacitly accept these radical ideologies, or at the very least that students will not be motivated or capable of identifying the profound logical fallacies and factual errors present. It is unavoidable that students who disagree with woke ideologies will have to spend the time to better understand and defend positions in order to confront these institutions en masse, in a manner that is articulate, professional, and thorough.  

Do No Harm is doing precisely that. Dr. Goldfarb is setting an excellent model. It is my hope that medical students will engage with the ideas that Do No Harm advocates, so that we may present a formidable intellectual force against the dangerous aspirations of radical left-wing medical schools and healthcare institutions. 

This Georgia Medical School Is Violating Civil Rights

The Emory University School of Medicine is violating students’ civil rights – specifically by discriminating on the basis of race. That’s the message of an official complaint that Do No Harm filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on July 8th. The school must be held accountable for this blatant injustice.

Our complaint centers on a “Diversity and Equity Scholarship Program” in the medical school’s Department of Urology. It is solely available to applicants who are “African American, Latinx, and/or Native American.” This is racial discrimination, plain and simple, which makes the scholarships illegal under federal law. 

The Civil Rights Act holds that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance,” which includes Emory University.

We are asking the Office of Civil Rights to “promptly investigate the allegations in this complaint, act swiftly to remedy unlawful policies and practices, and order appropriate relief.” Racial discrimination is unacceptable – in healthcare as much as everywhere else.

If you know of a discriminatory scholarship or policy at your medical school, please let us know.

Do No Harm — OCR Complaint_Emory GA

This Florida Medical School Only Wants Woke Students

Are you woke enough to attend Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine? Students literally have to prove it when submitting their application. It shows that medical schools are increasingly interested in pushing political ideology – and less concerned with training physicians.

A tipster who’s concerned by identity politics at FAU pointed us to this offensive requirement, which can be found in the list of secondary questions that applicants must answer. To start, they must show they believe in “anti-racism” and “systemic racism”:

“As a community FAU Schmidt COM has made a commitment to be anti-racist and address systemic racism in education and healthcare. Institutionalized racism can be defined as “macro level systems, social forces, institutions, ideologies, and processes that interact with one another to generate and reinforce inequities among racial and ethnic groups.” As a future medical student at FAU, how can you play an active role in addressing and dismantling systemic racism?”

This is an insult to students – and a danger to healthcare. “Anti-racism” is inherently divisive and leads to racial discrimination. The founder of anti-racism, Ibram X. Kendi, has made that clear by saying “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination; the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

It gets worse. The FAU College of Medicine also asks students this:

“One of the values of the FAU Schmidt College of Medicine is to provide the best medical care for all people. A major challenge for all physicians to provide the best medical care are Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). These can be defined as “conditions in the social, physical, and economic environment in which people are born, live, work, and age.” What will you as a future doctor do to address SDOH?”

Translation: Students need to prove their commitment to solving social problems like homelessness, poverty, and so on. That’s not what medical schools are designed to do, yet woke ideology demands that students be activists first and physicians second.

What’s happening at FAU’s College of Medicine is far from unique. Nationwide, medical students and faculty alike are increasingly expected to prove their woke bona fides. But is that really what Florida taxpayers who fund Florida Atlantic University really want? If not, lawmakers should act immediately.

Are you a medical student or professor who has been forced to pay homage to woke ideology? If so, please let us know.

Biden Is Forcing Hospitals To Go Woke

Hospitals may soon have to prove their commitment to woke ideology. This deeply concerning reality is buried in a 639-page proposed regulation from the Biden administration that deserves more attention than it’s getting.

The upcoming mandate directs hospitals to make five “attestations” that fully align with woke demands. If hospitals don’t do what the federal government wants, it appears that their federal reimbursements may be cut.

The federal government is demanding that hospitals:

  1. Develop a “strategic plan for advancing health equity” – including laying out specific actions that hospitals will take when providing care to people of different racial and demographic groups.
  1. Collect “demographic and social determinant of health data” – which includes everything from patients’ race or ethnicity to their income and employment status.
  1. Identify “gaps” in care based on patients’ race or identity.
  1. Engage in “local, regional, or national” activities to advance “health equity.”
  1. Set “an organizational culture of equity,” with hospital leaders demonstrating “routine and thorough attention to equity.”

Every patient should be worried. By demanding that hospitals advance “health equity,” the Biden administration is laying the groundwork for different standards of care or access to care for people of different races. And by gaining access to so much data on patient demographics, the federal government is setting the stage for further policies that punish hospitals for not toeing the woke line.

The Biden administration’s proposed regulation has nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with divisive ideology. Hospitals should provide the best care for patients, not promise to uphold the party line. 

This Medical School Is Forcing Professors To Be Woke

Be woke, or else. 

That’s the message that Indiana University School of Medicine just sent to its faculty. On June 16th, the Faculty Steering Committee formally approved a mandate that all professors demonstrate their commitment to identity politics as a condition of employment or tenure. IUSM is officially putting ideology ahead of medical education.

Do No Harm’s chairman, Dr. Stan Goldfarb, previously sent a letter to IUSM regarding this dangerous policy. He took issue with the mandate’s requirement that faculty (1) declare their support for “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and (2) demonstrate the actions they’ve taken in pursuit of this agenda. 

Dr. Goldfarb wrote:

“Forcing candidates to declare their support for DEI when so many of them undoubtedly oppose it would compel dishonesty. Forcing candidates to show a track record of involvement in DEI would compel participation in and allegiance to a belief system. All of this is deeply illiberal and violates IUSM’s own professed commitment to academic freedom.”

He concluded by saying: “If you proceed with these standards, the IU School of Medicine will suffer.” The school will now prove it. Faculty will be stifled from teaching and researching non-woke concepts, while medical students will learn more about identity politics and less about caring for patients.

The good news is that the fight isn’t over. Indiana’s elected leaders should consider stepping in. After all, they spent taxpayer dollars supporting the school, and they can stop it from violating professors’ rights and harming medical students’ education. Someone has to protect Indiana from this woke mandate.

Is your medical school forcing professors to embrace divisive and dangerous ideas? Please let us know.

Boston Children’s Hospital Goes Woke

A children’s hospital should be concerned with one thing and one thing only: Helping children. But Boston Children’s Hospital, one of America’s top pediatric care providers, is obsessed with something else: Woke ideology, which has nothing to do with the health and well-being of kids.

The problems began in 2020, when BCH adopted a “declaration on equity, diversity, and inclusivity.” One of its key goals is to “comprehensively educat[e] employees on the impact of racism on child health, unconscious bias, [and] bystander-upstander awareness.” This language has subsequently affected much of what the hospital does.

We received a tip from a concerned citizen about BCH’s continued descent into radical ideology. The person sent us a series of emails sent by the hospital’s president and CEO. Lo and behold, they focus on things like federal gun control and “incidents [that] are rooted in hatred and racism.” The people at the top of the hospital are setting a tone of partisanship and identity politics, when the focus should be on improving care for children.

The hospital’s research is also being subjected to layers of woke review. Researchers studying “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity” – or as Boston Children’s calls it, EDI – must go through a special review to make sure EDI research is being “conducted using equitable research processes” among other things. The equity researchers, in other words, need to be audited according to woke standards.

The concerned citizen also sent us some recent communications from BCH’s CEO. Earlier this month, the CEO sent an email detailing everything the hospital is doing to advance equity – from creating an “Institute for Pediatric Health Equity and Inclusion” to establishing employee groups focused on race.

What’s more, hospital leadership often end their emails by saying: “Support Health Equity / End Racism.” The tone at the top couldn’t be more clear, and it sets a tone of politicization at every level.

It’s a sad day for healthcare when a prominent institution like Boston Children’s Hospital loses sight of its mission of helping the youngest and most vulnerable among us. It’s even sadder when that vision of helping children is replaced by the hateful and divisive ideology of anti-racism.

Are you concerned about a pediatric hospital or other prominent healthcare institution? If you’ve seen anything similar to what’s happening at Boston Children’s Hospital, please let us know.

The AAO Puts an Eye on DEI

Another day, another medical association caves to woke ideology. A tipster recently sent us an email from the American Academy of Ophthalmology in which the association commits to making identity politics a core part of its operations. What this information has to do with ophthalmology – the treatment of eye disorders – is never discussed.

The AAO email starts by saying it wants to reflect diversity in all its operations. But there’s a problem: AAO members aren’t required to disclose their demographic information. No problem: The Association wants every member to provide details on their race, gender, and other characteristics. The list includes gender identity, sexual orientation, and pronouns. 

What will this information be used for? To start, preferential treatment. The AAO intends to select “leaders, presenters, programs, and award recipients” based on their identity, as opposed to their achievements or objective qualifications. 

The AAO will also developing different “programs and services” it provides to its members. You can bet these new offerings will be less professional development, more political ideology, as we’ve seen with plenty of other medical associations. 

The only positive note is that members aren’t compelled to submit their information, nor will it be publicly displayed. But it remains to be seen how long those carve-outs last. If anything is clear about the woke takeover of healthcare, it’s that activists won’t stop until they dictate how all of medicine looks and works – from the physicians who get hired to the patients who get treated.