What does it mean to “do no harm?” Is the maxim a guideline establishing the bounds of ethical and beneficial clinical practice, or an affirmative obligation for something else?
The 2025 capstone presentation from then-Mayo Clinic Chief Resident Dr. Taylor Christian, titled “First do no harm: the history and origin of medical racism,” provides one potential theory.
The presentation’s teaser asks the question, “Can we fulfill our oath to ‘do no harm’ if we ignore the harm of racial injustice in medicine?”
“Understanding the historical roots and persistent impact of medical racism isn’t just informative; it is a call to action,” the teaser continues. “This presentation is an opportunity to learn, reflect, and act to become better advocates.”
It is absolutely the case that racism has no place in medicine and that physicians should ensure they do not engage in racial discrimination in clinical practice.
Yet by conflating a physician’s duty to his or her patients with an affirmative obligation to “advocate” against “racial injustice,” Dr. Christian is making a category error, and a very harmful one at that.
“Doing no harm” is not a call for physicians to transform themselves into activists in the workplace; in fact, quite the opposite. Physicians cannot provide the best possible care to their patients if they are mediating their clinical interactions through the lens of a particular political agenda.
Unfortunately, Dr. Christian’s presentation would suggest otherwise.
The premise of the presentation itself is that systemic racism is the driver for disparities in health outcomes between racial groups, and physicians have an obligation to address systemic racism in clinical practice.
Although details are scarce on what the actual mechanisms of racism are that could cause these disparities, Dr. Christian does provide a few explanations, including implicit bias.
“I encourage each of you to take the Harvard Implicit Association Test, or the IAT for short,” she said, referring to a test aimed at measuring implicit or unconscious bias.
As ample research has shown, these tests are, at best, a poor predictor of real-world behavior such that “implicit bias” cannot be seriously characterized as a catch-all explanation for racial health disparities that lack convenient explanations.
It is unwise, to say the least, to attribute causal significance to a phenomenon that can neither be reliably measured nor demonstrate any degree of validity.
Next, to describe the model values of physicians working to combat racism in medicine, Dr. Christian quoted the Mayo Clinic’s “Commitment Against Racism.”
That included efforts to work on “Reflecting the diversity of our patients and communities among our staff, students and leaders by ensuring equal employment, educational and advancement opportunities for all.”
It also included a pledge to “strengthen our diversity and inclusion pipeline programs for health care professionals” and “recruit and develop clinical leaders who are representative of our broader community.”
Dr. Christian concluded the presentation by discussing ways for physicians to address racism in clinical practice.
These included policing microaggressions, incorporating anti-racism into curricula, and “promoting diversity” more broadly.
“So, as far as our call to action today: what can we do as healthcare providers?” Dr. Christian asked. “Acknowledge and challenge our implicit biases. Advocate for policy and systemic changes. Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Get involved with our emergency department DEI team.”
(Interestingly, the Mayo Clinic renamed its DEI department to the “Office of Belonging” in April 2025.)
In short, this is a vision of clinical practice that presents activism and advocacy as a necessary part of a physician’s duties.
This is not “doing no harm,” but reimagining the physician as a DEI activist, to the detriment of patients and medicine more generally.
Florida University Board of Governors Takes the LCME to Task Over Gender Ideology
Uncategorized Florida Gender Ideology Liaison Committee on Medical Education accrediting organization Commentary Do No Harm StaffLast week, Alan Levine, Chairman of the Florida State University System’s Board of Governors, sent a letter to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
The letter asked the LCME whether it is properly enforcing its accreditation standards given that many of the medical schools it accredits perform sex-denying interventions (such as prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and/or performing surgeries) on minors.
“In reviewing the standards of the LCME, I am curious how our nation’s medical schools have led the way, in the absence of clear evidence, to such broad use of interventional and altering treatments and procedures where permanent disfigurement and irreversible damage to the reproductive systems of minors was so accepted,” Levine wrote.
Levine cited the ever-increasing body of evidence showing that so-called “gender-affirming care” for children poses serious health risks, and that these practices are not supported by sufficient evidence.
The Department of Health and Human Services in 2025 published a comprehensive review of the evidence behind sex-denying interventions for minors and found there to be insufficient evidence to support these practices.
In 2024, the Cass Review, commissioned by the United Kingdom’s National Health Services, found “remarkably weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for gender distressed children.
And earlier this month, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons came out against sex-denying surgeries for minors, citing the lack of evidence behind such procedures.
Under the LCME regime, medical schools and associated hospitals have become vehicles for the child transgender industry; Do No Harm has documented these activities in our Stop the Harm Database.
It is clearly within the purview of the LCME to ensure that medical schools are not serving as vectors for gender ideology or, worse, committing harmful medical interventions on minors. The LCME should take action to prevent such abuses.
Levine’s letter further pointed out how existing LCME standards, such as its standards related to professionalism, would presumably already prevent medical schools from engaging in this behavior.
“Do professional standards require that there be clear evidence of a benefit before subjecting a minor to permanent, body-altering surgery?” Levine asked. “In the accreditation process, how does LCME ensure this standard is applicable in a manner such that patients are protected from experimental or other procedures which may be driven more by ideology than by clinical evidence?”
Levine’s questions are well worth asking.
It is the duty of medical education accreditors to ensure that accredited medical schools are not engaging in experimental, unsupported medical interventions that impose massive harms upon society’s most vulnerable. Indeed, it is an ethical predicate for the practice of medicine that physicians “do no harm.”
It’s also worth noting that the LCME is currently proposing changes to its accreditation standards that would remove language requiring medical schools to adopt curricula teaching about, among other things, the “importance of health care disparities and health inequities.”
A group of medical education administrators, physicians, and others, called the Coalition for Structural Competency in Medical Education, organized a petition protesting these changes.
The petition additionally calls for the LCME to incorporate medical education standards that “[c]learly define the knowledge and skills students must learn to understand how social, economic, and political structures affect health and healthcare.”
Needless to say, it’s essential that the LCME does not yield to these demands. It is not the province of medical schools to inculcate students into particular politically-charged explanations of public health phenomena.
Rather, schools have a duty to train future physicians to provide the best possible medical care.
The LCME’s job is to make sure schools fulfill that duty.
The American Hospital Association Quietly Scrubs Evidence of DEI Activities
COMMENTARY United States DEI Health system, Medical association Commentary Do No Harm StaffIn 2022, the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Institute for Diversity and Health Equity (IFDHE) conducted a survey showing that DEI had infected many American hospitals.
The survey was administered to over 6,000 hospitals and achieved more than 1,300 responses. Do No Harm reported on the survey’s findings in early 2024:
Obviously, these findings are very troubling. They indicate a near-unanimous endorsement of DEI principles among America’s hospitals.
But now, not only is that report no longer available on the AHA website, but the entire IFDHE webpage is no longer available at all.
According to the digital archive Wayback Machine, the report was last available on the AHA site as far back as January 9, 2025; curiously, right before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who issued several executive orders in his first few days in office targeting DEI in healthcare.
Meanwhile, the IFDHE website was last publicly available, per the Wayback Machine, at some point in late January to early February 2025.
The IFDHE website now redirects to a webpage on the main AHA website titled “Reducing Disparities in Health Outcomes,” as does the report. The IFDHE X account has also not posted since late 2024.
From these facts, it’s unclear whether the AHA has abandoned its DEI institute altogether, or simply removed its public footprint.
But that’s not the only scrubbing the AHA has done over the past year.
In 2015, the AHA created a campaign titled the “#123forEquity Pledge to Act to Eliminate Health Care Disparities.”
The pledge, signed by hospital and health system leaders, included commitments “to take action” on at least one of the following goals: “Increase the collection, stratification and use of race, ethnicity, language preference and other sociodemographic data to improve quality and safety”; “Increase cultural competency training to ensure culturally responsive care”; “Advance diversity in leadership and governance to reflect the communities served”; and “Improve and strengthen community partnerships.”
The third item in that list is particularly worrying as it indicates an endorsement of racial discrimination.
The pledge was signed by more than 1,700 hospitals as of early 2024.
But that pledge, too, has vanished from the AHA website.
Indeed, even in the 2015 press release announcing the pledge, the link to the pledge details redirects to the “Reducing Disparities in Health Outcomes” webpage. A search for the pledge on the AHA website indicates that content related to the pledge, as well as other DEI-related materials, requires AHA membership to access.
The last archive available of the pledge on the Wayback Machine is dated January 2, 2025.
At the very least, it seems that the AHA is attempting to distance itself from its more overt attempts to inject DEI into hospital practices.
But that’s not good enough.
The AHA should make clear that it disavows these divisive, discriminatory practices, and commit to ensuring that hospitals prioritize the health and safety of their patients over ideological goals.
The AAMC Tries to Sell the Public on ‘Health Equity.’ We’re Not Buying It
COMMENTARY United States DEI Association of American Medical Colleges Medical association Commentary Do No Harm StaffLast month, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Center for Health Justice published a poll ostensibly showing Americans’ support for “health equity” – a somewhat nebulous concept often used to refer to efforts that seek to equalize health outcomes between racial groups through discrimination.
The AAMC poll asks respondents whether they are in favor of “everyone having a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health.”
Who could be against such a harmless platitude? But support for this goal, the AAMC implies, is actually support for “health equity.”
Indeed, in the article announcing the poll, Center for Health Justice Founding Director Philip M. Alberti attempts to redefine what health equity has long meant:
If only the AAMC actually believed this.
As Do No Harm has documented, the AAMC itself has used the language of “health equity” to refer to initiatives that seek to equalize outcomes between racial groups, often through racial discrimination.
At the AAMC’s 2024 annual meeting, the organization hosted a session called “Strategies for Continuing the Commitment to DEI Values and Achieving Health Equity” in which speakers discussed methods for continuing racially conscious admissions practices.
The AAMC’s amicus brief in support of racially discriminatory admissions policies refers to health equity in the context of equalized health outcomes: “Thousands of other studies have documented race-linked health inequities pervading nearly every index of human health, which combine to result in an overall reduced life expectancy for racial and ethnic minorities that cannot be explained by genetics.”
Alberti even co-authored a research brief published not two years ago titled “Racial Justice and Health Equity: Public Perspectives on Reparations in America,” advocating for racial reparations (which are of course inherently discriminatory) to address health inequities!
It’s hard to see how transferring wealth from one racial group to another, or prioritizing certain racial groups over others in admissions, isn’t “handing out unfair advantage.”
The AAMC is shamelessly attempting to conflate a shorthand for racial discrimination with an anodyne commitment to “opportunity.”
If it were true that the AAMC had suddenly ditched its discriminatory ways, then we would applaud.
But, given the past few years of strident advocacy for racial discrimination, we’re just not buying it.
Do Harm Submits Comment to FDA Urging Oversight of Off-Label Estrogen Use in Males
COMMENTARY United States, Washington DC Gender Ideology Federal government Commentary Executive Do No Harm StaffIn December 2025, Do No Harm co-signed a citizen petition asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to address the risks of the widespread off-label prescription of estrogen to males for the purpose of so-called “gender-affirming care.”
The petition urged the FDA to open a dedicated docket to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of this off-label estrogen use in males and to convene a Part 15 public hearing to gather expert and patient testimonies on its risks and benefits, along with other safety measures.
Now, this week, Do No Harm submitted a comment on the citizen petition reaffirming the dangers of off-label estrogen use in males and reiterating calls for the FDA to take action through a public hearing.
“The evidence from both the literature and clinical practice shows that the risks associated with estrogen use in natal males are well-documented and significant,” the comment states. “Physicians prescribing estrogen and males receiving estrogen must be fully informed of these potential adverse effects.”
“Unfortunately, current labeling for estrogen-containing products does not adequately warn clinicians or patients about the dangers associated with this off-label use, undermining informed consent and patient safety,” the comment continues.
The comment additionally urges the FDA to take up the citizen’s petitions recommendations to (1) mandate a boxed warning on all relevant estrogen-containing products detailing the severe risks associated with their off-label use in males, (2) conduct a comprehensive safety review, and (3) mandate enhanced adverse event reporting to guide clinicians to report any serious adverse events the drugs create for patients.
Read the full comment here.
To Really ‘Do No Harm,’ Get Politics Out of Clinical Practice
COMMENTARY Minnesota DEI Medical School Commentary Do No Harm StaffWhat does it mean to “do no harm?” Is the maxim a guideline establishing the bounds of ethical and beneficial clinical practice, or an affirmative obligation for something else?
The 2025 capstone presentation from then-Mayo Clinic Chief Resident Dr. Taylor Christian, titled “First do no harm: the history and origin of medical racism,” provides one potential theory.
The presentation’s teaser asks the question, “Can we fulfill our oath to ‘do no harm’ if we ignore the harm of racial injustice in medicine?”
“Understanding the historical roots and persistent impact of medical racism isn’t just informative; it is a call to action,” the teaser continues. “This presentation is an opportunity to learn, reflect, and act to become better advocates.”
It is absolutely the case that racism has no place in medicine and that physicians should ensure they do not engage in racial discrimination in clinical practice.
Yet by conflating a physician’s duty to his or her patients with an affirmative obligation to “advocate” against “racial injustice,” Dr. Christian is making a category error, and a very harmful one at that.
“Doing no harm” is not a call for physicians to transform themselves into activists in the workplace; in fact, quite the opposite. Physicians cannot provide the best possible care to their patients if they are mediating their clinical interactions through the lens of a particular political agenda.
Unfortunately, Dr. Christian’s presentation would suggest otherwise.
The premise of the presentation itself is that systemic racism is the driver for disparities in health outcomes between racial groups, and physicians have an obligation to address systemic racism in clinical practice.
Although details are scarce on what the actual mechanisms of racism are that could cause these disparities, Dr. Christian does provide a few explanations, including implicit bias.
“I encourage each of you to take the Harvard Implicit Association Test, or the IAT for short,” she said, referring to a test aimed at measuring implicit or unconscious bias.
As ample research has shown, these tests are, at best, a poor predictor of real-world behavior such that “implicit bias” cannot be seriously characterized as a catch-all explanation for racial health disparities that lack convenient explanations.
It is unwise, to say the least, to attribute causal significance to a phenomenon that can neither be reliably measured nor demonstrate any degree of validity.
Next, to describe the model values of physicians working to combat racism in medicine, Dr. Christian quoted the Mayo Clinic’s “Commitment Against Racism.”
That included efforts to work on “Reflecting the diversity of our patients and communities among our staff, students and leaders by ensuring equal employment, educational and advancement opportunities for all.”
It also included a pledge to “strengthen our diversity and inclusion pipeline programs for health care professionals” and “recruit and develop clinical leaders who are representative of our broader community.”
Dr. Christian concluded the presentation by discussing ways for physicians to address racism in clinical practice.
These included policing microaggressions, incorporating anti-racism into curricula, and “promoting diversity” more broadly.
“So, as far as our call to action today: what can we do as healthcare providers?” Dr. Christian asked. “Acknowledge and challenge our implicit biases. Advocate for policy and systemic changes. Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Get involved with our emergency department DEI team.”
(Interestingly, the Mayo Clinic renamed its DEI department to the “Office of Belonging” in April 2025.)
In short, this is a vision of clinical practice that presents activism and advocacy as a necessary part of a physician’s duties.
This is not “doing no harm,” but reimagining the physician as a DEI activist, to the detriment of patients and medicine more generally.
Standing Up to DEI
Uncategorized Alabama DEI Medical School Commentary Do No Harm Staff“We must wash our hands of DEI in medical schools.”
That’s what Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville said in a speech last month at the Alabama Hospital Association’s Healthcare Leadership Summit.
“DEI has plagued our federal government, academic institutions, and other aspects of our society for far too long, all while disregarding merit in the process,” he continued.
We couldn’t agree more.
It’s encouraging to see elected representatives highlight the issues on which Do No Harm has worked tirelessly, and it’s essential that we all reinforce this simple truth: DEI has no place in medicine.
In practice, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” invariably involves racial discrimination. Merit is subordinated to skin color and ideology.
Needless to say, that is incompatible with the core mission of medicine.
“We want Alabama students, our brightest young minds from every corner of the state, to have places at Alabama medical schools based on their hard work, talent and qualifications, not on divisive quotas or identity politics,” Senator Tuberville continued. “We want them to stay right here and practice in Alabama, building our communities, serving our rural areas, and strengthening our health infrastructure for generations to come.”
Do No Harm is fighting for these types of merit-based policies. Indeed, back in 2022, we submitted federal civil rights complaints against the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s medical school over three scholarships awarded to students on the basis of race; those scholarships are no longer active.
Recently, we sued the University of California, Los Angeles’s medical school for its race-conscious admissions policy.
And we exposed evidence of racial discrimination in the admissions processes of many other medical schools.
“Let’s reject this poisonous ideology in our education and health care systems once and for all,” Senator Tuberville concluded.
We applaud Senator Tuberville for spreading this message.
The Medical Residency ‘Match’ Program Promotes the DEI Agenda
COMMENTARY, Nonprofit United States DEI Commentary Do No Harm StaffAfter doctors graduate from medical school, they enter a residency program, applying through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) run by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
The National Resident Matching Program (the NRMP), a private organization, uses an algorithm to place applicants into residency and fellowship positions.
Beginning in 2022, the NRMP began collecting demographic data on applicants who used its service. This data collection is voluntary.
However, this decision was explicitly motivated by the NRMP’s goal to address diversity in residency programs.
“The decision was driven by support from national learner organizations and members of the broader medical education community who viewed the NRMP as the entity best positioned to lead efforts to characterize the current state of diversity in the transition to residency and encourage greater equity in the ranking and matching processes,” the NRMP stated in a 2023 research brief addressing its demographic data collection.
“When registering for the Match, applicants are invited to provide information on characteristics including sex and gender, race, and ethnicity as well as socio-economic status, first-generation education, and disability,” the NRMP continued.
While the NRMP makes clear that its demographic data “will never be incorporated in any way into the matching algorithm,” the NRMP nevertheless uses its findings to advocate for diversity initiatives, some of which appear to be racially discriminatory.
“There is a clear need to build greater applicant diversity earlier in the pipeline so as to eliminate the imbalances in representation, race in particular, that drive findings like these,” the NRMP stated in its research brief.
Indeed, the NRMP explicitly cites diversity initiatives that “have focused on modifying selection, interview, and ranking processes for residency” to increase the representation of “URiM” students (students from underrepresented minority groups).
That sounds an awful lot like racial discrimination.
One such referenced initiative explicitly devalued the role of applicants’ test scores for an emergency medicine residency program at the Emory University School of Medicine, reasoning that “racial disparities exist in standardized tests.”
Another initiative explicitly prioritized URiM applicants in the interview process at the University of Utah Health.
And still another included specific recommendations for program admissions officials to favor racial minorities in multiple stages of the application process.
Moreover, although the NRMP may not be explicitly using race to match applicants to residency programs, the organization outright admits that its data collection efforts are to achieve “greater diversity and equity in medicine.” An excerpt from its 2022 annual report reads as follows:
Another excerpt states the NRMP is intent on “leveraging applicant demographic and specialty preference data to address workforce equity, especially for underserved populations.”
In less-Orwellian terms, the NRMP is making clear that its demographic data collection efforts will help residency programs better promote “diversity” (read: engage in racial discrimination).
Imagine how applicants of disfavored racial groups feel: they are trusting an organization to place them into a program that will further their career, in which they’ve invested a nearly-unfathomable amount of time and effort.
And that organization is enabling discrimination against them on the basis of their race!
That is unconscionable.
Here are the Hospitals Pausing Child Sex Change Procedures in the Wake of Trump’s Executive Order
Resource United States Gender Ideology Hospital System Resources Executive Do No Harm StaffIn January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order halting taxpayer funding of child sex change procedures through federal grants and health benefit programs. By making taxpayer funding contingent on ending so-called “gender-affirming care,” the order incentivizes medical facilities that rely on federal funds to halt their child sex change programs.
Already, hospitals and medical facilities across the country are curtailing minors’ access to these harmful procedures.
Here are the hospitals that have taken action:
Editor’s note: This list will be updated as more information becomes available.
New Report Exposes Ideological Capture of Continuing Medical Education
Uncategorized United States DEI, Gender Ideology Medical association Press Release Do No Harm StaffSALT LAKE CITY, UT; February 4, 2026 – Today, medical watchdog Do No Harm released its newest report entitled “The Ideological Capture of Continuing Medical Education.”
The report exposes the American Medical Association (AMA) for developing Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses that prioritize political activism and fashionable social issues rather than fostering professional growth in doctors to ensure enhanced patient care.
“Given their track record of bias and ideological activism, it’s no surprise the AMA is pushing thinly-veiled political propaganda to medical professionals under the guise of education,” said Naomi Risch, report author and Senior Research Associate at Do No Harm. “Such programs, injected with divisive narratives, undermine the integrity of medical education and disregard the necessity of scientific rigor. Patients want to have confidence that they are receiving the highest quality care from doctors and nurses, free from the influence of a particular political agenda. These biased CME programs not only waste professionals’ time that could otherwise be spent learning about the latest medical breakthroughs, but also diminish patient confidence in the quality of care they’re receiving.”
To audit CME course content, Do No Harm identified the top breakthroughs in medicine in the last century and conducted a keyword search that compared the mentions of politicized buzzwords to the mentions of relevant medical terms.
The results reveal that CME courses prioritize advancing political narratives, rather than offering content aimed at sharpening medical professionals’ ability to provide exceptional medical services to patients. Do No Harm also evaluated the information presented in the AMA’s additional online educational resources to unveil further commitment to radical identity politics.
Results from Do No Harm’s report confirming the AMA’s push of ideological content within CME:
Do No Harm, established in April 2022, has rapidly gained recognition and made significant strides in its mission to safeguard healthcare from ideological threats. It has over 50,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and 14 countries.
Do No Harm Applauds ASPS for Rejecting Sex-Denying Surgeries for Children
Uncategorized United States Gender Ideology American Society of Plastic Surgeons Medical association Commentary Do No Harm StaffToday, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) released a position statement recommending surgeons do not perform sex-denying surgical procedures on minors.
The ASPS is the first major medical association to reject such harmful interventions.
“High praise to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for taking an important step toward ending the unscientific and harmful practice of sex-rejecting procedures on minors,” said Do No Harm Chairman Stanley Goldfarb, MD. “The ASPS becomes the first major medical organization to support evidence-based and ethical medicine and reject, in their words, these harmful and irreversible procedures.”
“The ASPS’s thoughtful, scientific, and well-reasoned statement today is a model for other medical organizations — namely the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and others — to follow and disavow their previous support for experimental and unscientific interventions,” said Dr. Goldfarb. “This fight is not over, and we will continue to protect American children by exposing any organization that spreads gender lies.”
The ASPS position statement cited the Department of Health and Human Services’s May 2025 comprehensive review of the evidence supporting sex-denying interventions for children, as well as the United Kingdom’s 2024 Cass Review; both reviews found that the evidence supporting these interventions was weak.
The ASPS position statement further stated that there is insufficient evidence supporting “endocrine” interventions in children.
The ASPS position reads as follows:
Do No Harm applauds the ASPS for following the evidence and urges other medical associations to follow suit.
Simply put, sex-denying medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions are not well-supported as treatments for minors suffering from gender dysphoria.
These interventions pose serious risks and may cause major irreversible harm.
Indeed, several European countries already recognize the experimental nature of so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors and have limited children’s access to these interventions.
Although the ASPS did not endorse laws restricting these interventions, its position statement is a crucial step forward for the medical field and a sign that the tide is turning against gender ideology.
The ASPS position statement also drew praise from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We commend the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for standing up to the overmedicalization lobby and defending sound science,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “By taking this stand, they are helping protect future generations of American children from irreversible harm.”
Do No Harm once again applauds the ASPS for standing up to gender ideology and following the evidence.
We urge other medical associations to do the same.
Medical Resident Union Is Working to Inject DEI Into Healthcare
Uncategorized United States DEI Medical association Commentary Do No Harm StaffThe Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), a union representing interns, resident physicians, and fellows and a subdivision of the massive Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is working to inject DEI into clinical practice.
The organization’s “priority issues” include “Immigrant Rights” which, a keen observer may notice, has nothing to do with healthcare or medicine.
But most troubling is the union’s vision of healthcare and healthcare education.
The organization’s “Diversity, Inclusion & Anti-Racism” priority issue states the following: “Our national strategy and local organizing around health justice, racial justice, and social justice ensure our patients, members, and communities have what they need to thrive.”
Indeed, CIR maintains a committed DEI task force with the goal of advancing identity politics in healthcare.
“The members of CIR’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism (DIAR) Task Force develop a national strategy and advance local organizing around health equity, racial justice, and improving social determinants of health for our patients, members, and communities,” the task force webpage reads.
This alone is cause for alarm: for one, “health equity” in practice often entails policies aimed at equalizing health outcomes between racial groups. This reduces people to group identities rather than treating them as individuals, opening the door for racial discrimination.
And “social determinants of health” refers to the unsupported notion that social and economic factors such as income determine an individual’s health outcomes, such that policy responses aimed at improving health should target these determinants.
The issue with this theory, however, is that while these factors may be correlated with disparities in health outcomes, the evidence that they actually cause poor health outcomes is shoddy and weak, at best.
Worse, the broad framing of social determinants of health opens the door to precisely this boundless line of reasoning: once every aspect of life can be construed as a health factor, virtually anything can be recast as a medical concern.
In practice, this invites an ever‑expanding role for government and health institutions to intervene in domains far beyond the proper scope of medical care. And it shifts medicine away from its core mission of diagnosing and treating illness, redirecting its focus toward managing broad social conditions that lie far outside the clinical domain.
Next, per the webpage, the task force’s work includes “Advancing language justice initiatives to support patients’ access to healthcare” and, most concerningly, “Negotiating DIAR curriculum and resources into workers’ contracts.”
It’s unclear exactly how this work will impact healthcare in reality, but needless to say, injecting DEI into the healthcare system by way of worker contracts is at the very least concerning.
Physicians should be focused on providing the best care possible, not working to inject divisive and discriminatory ideology into clinical practice.
Evidence Lacking for Claim That the Stress of Racism Shortens Lives
Uncategorized United States, Washington DC DEI Medical Journal Commentary Jay Greene, PhDIf researchers produced a study finding that poor and minority people tend to be more likely to have health problems and die at a younger age, it probably wouldn’t be published in a leading medical journal or covered with articles in national newspapers. It would rightly be seen as a restatement of the well-known, sad reality that for a variety of reasons poor and minority people tend to have worse diet and exercise and are more likely to use drugs and alcohol, contributing to worse health and earlier death.
But if researchers relabel the problems poor and minority people experience as “cumulative lifespan stress” and suggest those problems are the result of “systemic and explicit discrimination,” those same banal observations can earn a spot in one of the American Medical Association’s top journals and be covered in The Washington Post under the headline: “New evidence shows how discrimination shortens lives in Black communities.”
To be clear, the study published in JAMA Network Open does not demonstrate in any way that discrimination shortens lives in black communities. All it does is show that five measures, which they combine and call “cumulative lifespan stress,” are correlated with indicators of inflammation and are also correlated with dying younger. They also observe that black subjects scored higher on the index they called “stress,” had higher measures of inflammation, and also tended to die at an earlier age. The study’s research design does not allow them to identify whether the five measures they combine and label as “stress” caused inflammation or earlier death, nor can their study exclude whether other factors that they did not examine could have caused both the measures of inflammation and dying at a younger age.
Let’s consider the five measures the researchers use as an index for the physiological stress over one’s life to see how weak the study’s research design is. To capture this cumulative lifespan stress, researchers surveyed study participants to collect information on “(1) childhood maltreatment[…], (2) adult lifetime trauma exposure[…], (3) researcher-verified stressful life events[…], (4) discrimination[…], and (5) indices of socioeconomic status.”
The researchers combine these five measures into a single indicator that they call “cumulative lifespan stress,” but it is far from clear that these five measures actually capture physiological stress. In fact, many of these five measures include information on health problems or factors that could contribute to health problems. For example, the survey used to capture “adult lifetime trauma exposure” includes measures of whether subjects had “experienced a life threatening illness,” “experienced a miscarriage,” and was involved in an accident or otherwise received a serious injury. The measure of “stressful life events” includes information on serious illness or injury and whether a close relative had died.
These health challenges may be stressful, but it would be highly misleading to conclude that the stress associated with serious illnesses caused people to die at a younger age as opposed to the illnesses themselves. The researchers never control for the actual illnesses that subjects have when examining the correlation between their “cumulative lifespan stress” measure and the probability of early death. A subject could have chronic diabetes, uncontrolled blood pressure, or cancer and the researchers would conclude that they died of stress rather than these various diseases.
It is also important to note that only one of the five measures that they claim capture stress includes indicators of discrimination. And that measure asks whether subjects believe they had been treated “unfairly” in employment, housing, or other matters for a variety of reasons, only one of which is race. To conclude that this information, which is part of one of five measures that collectively are associated with early death, means that “discrimination shortens lives” would be completely irresponsible.
The reason this shoddy research receives such favorable treatment by a leading medical journal and alarmist coverage from national newspapers is that people wish to advance a political argument blaming racism for higher rates of health problems and early death in the black community. But nothing in this research demonstrates societal discrimination is to blame. By failing to control for the health challenges associated with diet, exercise, and alcohol and drug use, and by falsely relabeling reports of serious illness or risks of getting serious illnesses as “cumulative lifespan stress,” the study is attributing to racism what could easily be explained by medical comorbidities, individual choices, and community dysfunction.
If you are wondering who is paying for this shoddy research, the answer is you are.
Taxpayers funded this research through grants awarded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The last source of funding is particularly ironic since the study did not examine the obvious possibility that alcohol abuse could be part of the explanation for the results they observe. It’s bad that the American people must be falsely blamed for causing their black neighbors to die because of stressful discrimination, but even worse that they have to pay for such chicanery. Perhaps paying to be falsely blamed is also dangerously stressful.
Department of Justice Moves to Intervene in Do No Harm Lawsuit Against UCLA Medical School
Uncategorized California DEI University of California Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine Medical School Commentary Do No Harm StaffToday, the Department of Justice moved to intervene in Do No Harm’s lawsuit against the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
In May 2025, Do No Harm and Students for Fair Admissions filed a major class action lawsuit against UCLA for its discriminatory DEI medical admissions policy.
Our lawsuit alleged that, under the guise of “holistic admissions,” UCLA has been violating the Constitution and ignoring federal law in an effort to continue discriminating against applicants on the basis of race.
This critical case has been moving forward in federal court as we fight for all students who have faced, or may face, racial discrimination in UCLA’s medical school admissions.
On January 28, 2026, the United States government filed its motion to intervene in the case and stop these harmful discriminatory practices from continuing to persist at UCLA.
“The United States was right in its move to join this case, which is of great public importance,” said Do No Harm Executive Director Kristina Rasmussen. “We look forward to the Justice Department’s additional efforts here to get to the bottom of what appears to be an effort by UCLA to continue a race-based medical school admissions process in contravention of the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions.”
The Department of Justice complaint cites admissions data showing that black and Hispanic matriculants have on average lower MCAT scores and GPAs than white and Asian applicants, and alleges that this indicates racial discrimination in admissions.
A favorable resolution of this lawsuit will help ensure that universities across the country think twice before discriminating on the basis of race.
Read the Department of Justice’s Motion to Intervene here.
Read the Department of Justice’s complaint here.
Trump Administration Takes Action to Cut Off Funding for DEI, Gender Ideology Overseas
Uncategorized United States, Washington DC DEI, Gender Ideology Federal government Commentary Executive Do No Harm StaffToday, the State Department issued rules aimed at preventing taxpayer dollars from funding DEI and gender ideology initiatives overseas.
These rules are a critical step toward ensuring that Americans are not subsidizing discriminatory programs, radical identity politics, and harmful medical interventions on children.
One rule, “Combating Gender Ideology in Foreign Assistance,” adds new requirements to grant awards aimed at ensuring that recipients of State Department dollars do not spend these funds on promoting various tenets of gender ideology, with a particular focus on minors.
In particular, the rule targets organizations that provide sex-denying medical interventions for minors. It prevents funds from going toward any organization that “either offers counseling regarding sex change surgeries, promotes sex change surgeries for any reason as an option, conducts or subsidizes sex change surgeries, promotes the use of medications or other substances to halt the onset of puberty or sexual development of minors, or otherwise promotes transgenderism.”
The rule also cites the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) 2025 report, which found that there is no solid evidence to support sex-denying medical interventions on minors, and that these interventions may impose serious long-term harms (such as infertility) on children.
This rule reflects the reality that so-called “gender-affirming care” is harmful to children, and that the federal government has no business funding these harms.
Another rule, “Combating Discriminatory Equity Ideology in Foreign Assistance,” adds requirements to grant awards with the intent to prevent recipients of State Department funds from engaging in discriminatory DEI practices.
Under the rule, recipients of certain State Department awards agree that they will not “promote discriminatory equity ideology, engage in unlawful DEI-related discrimination, or provide financial support to any other foreign NGO or IO that conducts such activities.”
The rule defines “Discriminatory equity ideology” as an “ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of generalizations.”
Considering how many health-focused organizations are funded by State Department grants, this rule will provide essential protections to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not subsidizing initiatives that degrade the quality of healthcare and that subject patients to unequal treatment.
Do No Harm applauds these rules.
It’s critical that the federal government not only cuts off funding for radical identity politics, but ensures recipients of grant awards are not themselves ideological actors.
Do No Harm Report Debunks Prominent ‘Racial Concordance’ Study
Uncategorized United States DEI Medical Journal Press Release Do No Harm StaffSalt Lake City, UT; January 27, 2026 – Today, Do No Harm released a report entitled “Debunking Frakes and Gruber’s New Study on Racial Concordance.”
The report refutes a recent study, authored by economists Michael Frakes and Jonathan Gruber, that misleadingly claims racially diverse military medical facilities improve care for black patients. However, the study fails to actually examine whether black patients have better outcomes when treated by black doctors, and buries a key finding that undermines the thrust of the study’s conclusion.
Frakes and Gruber instead offer two flawed explanations for the study’s claims: 1) black doctors teach their peers how to better connect with black patients, and 2) the presence of black doctors in hallways increases black patients’ trust in non-black providers.
“We cannot allow politically motivated activists to push debunked racial theories that have no positive impact on patient care,” said Jay Greene, Director of Research for Do No Harm. “Studies like this are designed to codify DEI doctrine to pave the way for re-establishing affirmative action and enshrining race-based hiring. The report ignores the very question it purports to answer: whether black patients actually fare better with black doctors. Our report systematically exposes the study’s shoddy methodology and baseless conclusions. Americans of all races and backgrounds deserve high-quality medical research, not political ideology disguised as science.”
Flaws in the Frakes & Gruber Study:
Do No Harm’s report also notes that co-author Jonathan Gruber is infamous for bragging about relying on the “stupidity of the American voter” while helping mislead the public with opaque analyses to pass the Affordable Care Act.
Do No Harm, established in April 2022, has rapidly gained recognition and made significant strides in its mission to safeguard healthcare from ideological threats. It has over 50,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and 14 countries.
Medical School’s DEI Scholarship Is Cause for Alarm
Uncategorized Missouri DEI A.T. Still University Medical School Commentary Do No Harm StaffA.T. Still University (ATSU) is offering a scholarship through its Diversity Department ostensibly intended to support “students who learn and serve in diverse, underserved, urban, and rural communities across the globe.”
The Graduate Health Professions Scholarship (GPS) promises recipients “significant financial support during their residential education.”
But the program description, while not explicitly limiting eligibility to applicants of certain racial groups (and even containing a non-discrimination disclaimer), contains some suspicious language. Additionally, the scholarship encourages recipients to engage in DEI activities.
First, the scholarship is intended to “attract and educate students whose life contributions and experiences are consistent with the ATSU mission to serve in underserved areas.”
This language in itself may seem benign, but consider the following context: the scholarship next includes a definition of “underrepresented minorities.”
“A. T. Still University defines ‘Historically Underrepresented’ and ‘Underrepresented Minorities (HUGs)’ as those persons identified by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).”
The HRSA defines underrepresented minorities as “American Indian or Alaska Native”; “Black or African American”; “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander”; and “Hispanic.”
Although the scholarship application criteria does not explicitly contain language discriminating on the basis of race or sex, it’s certainly alarming that the scholarship would include this definition at all, and it’s likewise unclear what purpose it serves.
And there’s a further wrinkle: per a brochure containing a list of scholarship recipients on ATSU’s website, none of the listed recipients appear to be white or Asian.
The scholarship also contains requirements stating that recipients are encouraged to participate in “campus-wide Diversity Department programs and initiatives,” and must “meet with [the] program administrator or [the] D&I (Diversity & Inclusion) representative at least once monthly.”
Needless to say, this is more than a little troubling, especially when viewed in conjunction with the other language in the program description.
ATSU should make clear that its scholarship is available to all, and ensure that it is not seeking to award the scholarship only to members of certain racial groups.
A non-discrimination disclaimer alone isn’t going to cut it.
Virginia Legislation Would Subject Nurses to ‘Bias Reduction Training’
Uncategorized Virginia DEI State legislature Commentary Do No Harm StaffLegislation introduced in Virginia this year could force healthcare professionals to endure ideological programming under the guise of combating “unconscious bias.”
One bill, SB 22, would require certain healthcare professionals to submit to “bias reduction training” in order to maintain their licenses.
Specifically, the bill directs “the Board of Medicine and Board of Nursing to require certain licensees to complete bias reduction training as part of their continuing education and continuing competency requirements for licensure.”
The legislation explicitly identifies “unconscious racial bias [that] affects care during pregnancy and the postpartum period” as a target.
This legislation is not new. Indeed, a very similar bill was introduced last year that also sought to target “unconscious bias”; then-Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed the bill in May.
The notion that unconscious or implicit bias contributes to any real world impact is unsupported by solid evidence.
The tests used to evaluate or identify implicit bias fail to meet widely-accepted standards of reliability and validity and have been found to be “poor predictors” of real-world bias and discrimination.
And what’s more, Ohio State University psychology professor emeritus Hal Arkes described the test as “an extremely feeble predictor of behavior.”
It’s common sense that healthcare professionals should not be forced to undergo training grounded on false premises that accuses them of racism.
Virginia’s healthcare boards best serve their state when they focus on ensuring healthcare professionals adhere to standards of clinical excellence, and not when they inject dubious and divisive scientific concepts into healthcare education.
It’s also worth noting that SB 22 is just one of a flurry of bills introduced this year that seek to advance DEI and related discriminatory practices within the Commonwealth.
These efforts are already attracting the attention of the Department of Justice’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harmeet Dhillon.
Given this scrutiny, it would be wise for state officials to avoid expensive lawsuits and ensure that taxpayer funds do not go toward the costs of defending racist laws.
Medical School Program Abandons Admissions Standards for Black Applicants
Uncategorized Canada DEI Medical School Commentary Do No Harm StaffDalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, has adopted a new approach to pursue its goal of racial diversity in medicine: abandoning academic standards for black applicants altogether.
The Black Learners Admissions Pathway, a program with the ostensible goal of helping “facilitate entrance into the undergraduate medical education program for Black students,” requires black applicants no objective measures of academic achievement.
The program requires applicants to identify as either “Black/African Nova Scotian”; “Black/African Canadian”; “or Black/African.”
“There is no minimum grade point average (GPA) required under the Black Learners Admissions Pathway, but the Black Learners Admissions Subcommittee may use general GPA requirements as a point of reference during the holistic review process,” the program description states.
The Dalhousie Medicine Admissions Committee requires applicants of other racial groups to have a GPA of 3.3.
Likewise, there is no minimum MCAT threshold for black applicants, though an MCAT score completed within the past 5 years is required.
“No MCAT thresholds are required for eligibility under the Black Learners Admissions Pathway but the Black Learners Admissions Subcommittee may use general MCAT requirements as a point of reference during the holistic review process,” the program description states.
The minimum MCAT score for applicants who don’t enjoy this exemption is 492.
Dalhousie operates a similar program for indigenous students as well: the Indigenous Admissions Pathway, in which MCAT scores are optional.
Meanwhile, applicants in the Rural Applicant Pathway also do not need to meet a minimum MCAT threshold, but still must meet the GPA requirements.
As mentioned above, the Black Learners Admissions Pathway is intended to “diversify the healthcare workforce by applying equitable admissions processes for Black learners.”
Of course, imposing one standard on certain racial groups and another standard on other racial groups is the opposite of fair: it’s textbook discrimination.
In the zero-sum game of medical school admissions, one applicant’s benefit is another’s burden. But more than that, admitting applicants who are definitionally less qualified will almost certainly degrade patient care.
Dalhousie cannot produce the best possible physicians when it explicitly seeks to recruit applicants who fail to meet minimum standards of academic performance.
Additionally, qualified black physicians may have to endure the perception that their admission to medical school was due to their race, and not their competence and merit.
Dalhousie should abandon its discriminatory practices and focus on providing the best possible medical education to all, no matter their race.