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Should Med Schools Strive To Produce Competent Physicians Or Social Activists?
American Council on Science and Health ^ | April 9, 2024 | Henry I. Miller, MS, MD

Posted on 04/10/2024 11:31:09 AM PDT by Red Badger

Medical schools emphasizing DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) as criteria for admissions is a prescription for disaster.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The late politician and sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase "defining deviancy down" to describe the tendency of societies to respond to destructive behaviors by lowering standards for what is permissible. Texas physician Dr. Yakov Gizersky described a lamentable example of this in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, expressing his surprise at the influence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives on medical school admissions.

He related that he had recently become aware of how “politicized the selection and training of …future physicians has become” while his son was applying to medical schools. Dr. Gizersky described his epiphany thusly:

Nearly all the schools requested multiple essays providing a detailed explanation of the applicant’s dedication to DEI and participating in DEI-related activism. Some schools had essays querying the applicant’s activism for or opinion of progressive border policies. Most also requested that students discuss how they have been adversely affected by systematic racism (and if they haven’t been affected, then they should discuss what they plan to do to fight systemic racism, anyway).

Finally, he noted that some medical schools have stopped requiring applicants to take the Medical College Admission Test, a useful predictor of medical school performance, for “specific applicant groups.” (Emphasis added.)

Dr. Gizerky’s observations took me back… When I entered medical school at the University of California, San Diego, in the 1970s, a requirement for graduation was passing both parts of the medical board exams, the "med boards." Part One tested knowledge of basic science; Part Two, clinical medicine. For several years, the medical school had conducted an aggressive program of recruiting and admitting under-qualified minority students. It turned out that they could scrape by on Part One, but many were failing Part Two.

That was not a surprise to my classmates and me. Grades on exams were posted not by students' names but as curves. Ordinarily, you would expect the grades to fall in what's called a "standard normal distribution," or “bell-shaped curve,” that looks something like this:

Instead, the distribution was often more like this:

That implied, correctly, that there were two distinct populations represented by the scores, and we quickly ascertained that the lower distribution consisted of the under-qualified minority students.

Instead of tightening the admissions criteria, the administration responded by lowering the graduation requirement to passing Part One and just taking, but not necessarily passing, Part Two. Nary, a peep was heard from the faculty about this lowering of standards.

This sort of social engineering at medical schools has not been uncommon. Stanley Goldfarb, M.D., a retired dean for curriculum and co-director of the renal division at the University of Pennsylvania's medical school, has repeatedly criticized the trend toward allowing "social justice" considerations to play a dominant role in medical schools' admissions and curricula. He founded a nonprofit called Do No Harm, which aims "to combat discriminatory practices in medicine."

Dr. Gizersky ended his letter to the editor with this observation: “Medical students are already faced with learning more information than ever, and we can’t afford to have medical schools produce better activists than physicians.” I agree, but I would put it somewhat differently: When you're admitted to the hospital for complicated cardiac or neurosurgery, do you want it to be done by the most competent and accomplished surgeon or by one who was admitted to medical school and residency because he or she was a member of an underrepresented group?


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; History; Science; Society
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To: Red Badger

They want real doctors, it should be about knowledge, quality/performance, ethics.

Using Medicine, and its reputation to push social agendas isn’t just unethical, it’s just plain evil.

The need a DEI and Woke school for the rest. Good luck reputation, salary, and public need in the future with that training.


21 posted on 04/10/2024 12:02:29 PM PDT by Pete Dovgan (Repeatedl)
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To: Red Badger

What did you expect to happen once Obamacare passed and health care became a federal government agency?

Just like ruining the military, the left is now destroying health care. Seems like a simple way to get to their goal of significantly reducing the population of this country to make room for all those illegal aliens who will forever vote for a dictatorship.


22 posted on 04/10/2024 12:12:01 PM PDT by Pox (Eff You China. Buy American!)
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To: BuchananBrigadeTrumpFan

My MD is a black man who went to med school in Nigeria, his home country. Best MD I ever had, and I’m a white woman. All of the people who work in his office, from secretary to nurses and PAs say he’s the best doctor they ever worked for. Like him both professionally and personally.

And BTW, my black doc didn’t buy into the covid shot scam. How smart is that?


23 posted on 04/10/2024 12:14:20 PM PDT by Veto! (FJB Sucks Rocks)
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To: Pete Dovgan

24 posted on 04/10/2024 12:15:05 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

The word “competent” is from the white supremacy dictionary, just get rid of it. Problem solved.


25 posted on 04/10/2024 12:15:29 PM PDT by TheDon (Resist the usurpers! Remember the J6 political prisoners!)
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To: taxcontrol

So am I.


26 posted on 04/10/2024 12:22:10 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Red Badger

So ruminates the academic who titles his op-ed with a rhetorical question.

ID ten T.


27 posted on 04/10/2024 12:24:23 PM PDT by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Red Badger

Wow. Tough question.


28 posted on 04/10/2024 12:26:22 PM PDT by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and harder to find.)
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To: Red Badger

The question should even need to be asked?????


29 posted on 04/10/2024 12:29:24 PM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: Red Badger

Duh...


30 posted on 04/10/2024 12:31:35 PM PDT by goodnesswins (The Tree of Liberty is getting thirsty...)
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To: Red Badger
To bastardize an old saying...

"Teach a doctor to perform an appendectomy and they'll pay you for a day.

Teach a doctor to cut off a teen's genitals, and they'll pay you for life."

-PJ

31 posted on 04/10/2024 12:38:06 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Red Badger

Should Med Schools Strive To Produce Competent Physicians Or Social Activists?

Nurse: Doctor you have the scalpel upside down

Doctor: You sure

Nurse: Yes it’s why your thumb is bleeding


32 posted on 04/10/2024 12:46:10 PM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Red Badger
Should Med Schools Strive To Produce Competent Physicians Or Social Activists?

Ask the patients at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare in North Dallas.

Dallas doctor IV bag tampering trial: Expert testimony suggests pattern of emergencies among patients

Doc has bad record in surgery. Complains that they are "picking on him". So decided to make sure other doctors start having bad records as well by injecting various drugs into the IV bags.

Where would he have gotten the idea that this was an acceptable way to handle things?

He was just imposing equity. Every doctor at the facility now has equally bad outcomes.

33 posted on 04/10/2024 12:47:14 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love being on the government watch list, along with all of you.)
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To: reasonisfaith
They are not necessarily incompetent.

But they are evil.

34 posted on 04/10/2024 12:48:10 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love being on the government watch list, along with all of you.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

I will continue to advance this truth:

The globalist cabal, in its various branches and with its hidden tentacles reaching into all aspects of our world, will ultimately be recognized as both an intellectual and a moral failure.

The tough part for them will be to accept the reality of their intellectual failure.


35 posted on 04/10/2024 1:03:47 PM PDT by reasonisfaith (What are the personal implications if the Resurrection of Christ is a true event in history?)
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To: Red Badger

Eliminate medical school and competency exams. Just give them a facemask and a scalpel and let them have at it.


36 posted on 04/10/2024 1:55:25 PM PDT by George J. Jetso
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To: Red Badger

Social activists that wont treat people with the wrong skin color, and treat terribly those with the approved color and fluidity.


37 posted on 04/10/2024 2:18:13 PM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
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To: NWFree

My daughter is a medical doctor. She works in a Catholic hospital where they don’t kill babies. She refuses to practice medicine in any facility that does. So there are a few MD’s left who still follow the The Hippocratic oath. “Do no harm”. Makes me proud as a parent of a medical doctor who believes that way. Finally did something right in my life.


38 posted on 04/10/2024 4:28:00 PM PDT by kawhill (kawhill)
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To: Red Badger
" Should Med Schools Strive To Produce Competent Physicians Or Social Activists?"

No.

39 posted on 04/10/2024 6:35:54 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
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