Med schools are even more woke than you think — and your care is at risk
Excerpt:
Just how woke is your nearest medical school? Likely very woke — yet the organization that helps oversee medical schools thinks it’s not woke enough.
So says the Association of American Medical Colleges, which last week released the first-ever analysis of the extent to which “diversity, equity and inclusion” have infected the institutions training future physicians. I’ve covered this trend for years, but even I didn’t realize just how much patients should worry about the decline in standards and, in time, the quality of their own care.
The AAMC surveyed 101 institutions, representing almost two-thirds of American medical schools (two are in Canada), asking for audits of their DEI-related policies and programs. While the AAMC doesn’t appear to have released a list of participating schools, my organization discovered the audits’ existence in October, when Ohio State University included the document prepared by its College of Medicine in response to our freedom of information request.
.....Medical schools should fear a failing grade from the AAMC, which helps determine whether they get accredited. As a former associate dean, I can attest that when the AAMC sets priorities, administrators rush to follow them.
.....o how are medical schools most woke? Affirmative action, for one: 100% have “admissions policies and practices for encouraging a diverse class of students.” Fully 85% have leaders who’ve “used demographic data to promote change” within their institution. In other words, medical schools are giving skin color and gender a consistently bigger emphasis in recruiting. This approach risks de-prioritizing merit, leading to a lower quality of medical students.
.....That means there’s a permanent bureaucracy at most medical schools pushing woke ideology on faculty and students alike. These efforts take away time and money from actual education.
Where are medical schools falling short on the woke checklist? Some 75% advocate for DEI “policies and/or legislation at a local, state, or federal level.” Yet that means three out of four medical schools are using precious resources (and their powerful clout) to push a divisive agenda. A good example is Ohio State University’s support for declaring racism a public-health crisis in Columbus, where the College of Medicine is based. This also wastes resources that would be better spent on medical training.
More than 40% of medical schools offer tenure and promotions to faculty who conduct DEI scholarship. The Indiana University School of Medicine, for instance, implemented this policy in July.
.....Medical schools are broadly lowering standards for admissions, faculty and research while devoting a higher share of resources to political lobbying, politicized bureaucracy and public virtue signaling.
Is there any way to stop this trend? To start, governors or legislatures should require every medical school in their state that participated in the AAMC report to publish its audit. Then lawmakers should hold hearings on the findings. Ultimately, they should evaluate whether medical schools deserve so much state money.
Why are taxpayers funding schools that only recruit politicized faculty? Why are they paying administrators who fixate on applicants’ skin color? The public deserves to know exactly how woke their nearest medical school is so they can pressure it to put education — and ultimately quality of care — ahead of ideology.
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Dumbing down medical education to where anyone under 40 graduating from medical school is questionable. Covid policies and wokism slowly destroying what was once the envy of the world in medicine.
