Friends, decrying Putin is all the rage these days, but let's spare a moment to reflect on the enemy within, shall we? There's a "diversity, equity, and inclusion" industry at work in this country that, as you well know, doesn't actually favor real diversity, real equity, or real inclusion. On the contrary, it stands for blatant discrimination, the concentration of wealth and power in approved "woke" and well-connected hands, and the censorship -- or worse -- of all dissenters and free-thinkers. What's worse, this agenda is being incorporated into the governing principles and the rules and regulations of many institutions and companies. Medical schools are a case in point. These insitutions of higher ed, like their baccalaureate peers, are increasingly subject to political oversight and to the meddling of accreditation bodies that insist that they make DEI ideology a requirement for graduation and/or participation in the medical profession. To put it another way, in the very near future, doctors will be turfed out of American medicine simply for commiting thought crimes against leftist doctrine. If they're lucky, they might escape arrest for "hate crimes", but I should probably stop now before I give the Left any ideas! This is scary stuff, folks, and it's a reminder of just how dominant the neo-Marxists have become in almost all of our key political, cultural, educational, and economic institutions.
P.S. And make no mistake: the first casualty of DEI in American medicine will the principle of meritocracy. In other words, the next doctor who treats you won't be chosen based on smarts or ability, but based on whether he/she/it checks the right ideological and demographic boxes. I can't imagine any potential downside to that system, can you?
Nick, you usually don't post silly crap, but you did today. Both you and Dreher dramatically misrepresent DEI training and its impact. There's NOTHING in DEI training that will have any negative impact on the competence or employability of medical professionals. Actually, such DEI training will make them BETTER doctors because they will have a better understanding of the whole patient in front of them.
ReplyDeleteYour post was NOT a good look, Nick. Please do better.
Rod, DEI training is designed to embed in ALL medical students the ASSUMPTION that any inequities in outcomes MUST be the result of racism, which as we all know is crap. DEI ideology hurts everyone, in my opinion, perhaps people of color most of all, because it traps them in an us-versus-them mentality and denies them agency in their own lives. (Not to mention the fact that it puts an asterik next to every BIPOC doctor who earned his or her place the old fasiuoned way.)
ReplyDeleteI gather you were trying to imply that there has been no relaxation of standards and that affirmative action in medical school admissions won't hurt the quality of medical care one iota. The data says differently: standards have already been lowered, and the clamor from the Left is for more (much more) of the same.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/05/20/the-american-medical-association-now-has-a-plan-to-embed-racial-justice-n2589744
DEI training for medical students is bull shit anyway. Doctors swear an oath to care for all, regardless of race and class anyway. Political Correctness is way out of place for the medical field.
ReplyDeleteNick, if you don't know anything about DEI, please don't comment on it. Your claims here suggest you know nothing about DEI, or otherwise you wouldn't say something as baseless as "DEI training is designed to embed in ALL medical students the ASSUMPTION that any inequities in outcomes MUST be the result of racism, which as we all know is crap."
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of things that cause inequities. Race is one. Chromosomal sex is another. Income is a third. DEI seeks to 1) celebrate diversity; 2) identify inequities and seek to find fair opportunities to overcome them; and 3) insure everyone has a fair opportunity to be included.
As for Barkoukis' article (which like most of her writings is both poorly written and lacks logic), IF the study from AEI of AMA data is true, all it means is that white and Asian medical school applicants have better MCAT scores and GPAs than black and Hispanic applicants. What is not presented is whether A) white and Asian have better success in medical school than black and Hispanic students and 2) whether high MCAT scores and college GPAs create better doctors. Unless those two relationships can be established, then a claim that the quality of medical care has declined is mere unsupported speculation.
I agree, Ray -- medicine ought to be apolitical. These days, though, nothing is apolitical, and that's the way the Left likes it.
ReplyDeleteRod, sure -- DEI is couched in vague language that COULD produce nothing more than a heartfelt love of diversity and justice, but we all know that that isn't the way it works in practice. "Diversity" is a cudgel that the Left has been using against conservatives, and against America itself, for decades now.
And I guess you're proposing that good performance on the MCAT, and good grades, may be irrelevant to one's ability to succeed in the medical profession? In this regard, you're well in line with your progressives cronies, who want to abolish all objective measures of merit, or should I say "merit", since the very concept is anathema these days. Hey, let's try it: let's choose future doctors based on racial quotas and on who's better at proving their love of DEI. Let's see how terrific medical care is in such a system. I jest, but in fact we WILL soon see the results of this woke madness. My guess is soon our health care system will be as esteemed as our public schools, which have been progressive playgrounds for years now. In other words, say good bye to American excellence in health care!
Nick, I don't know if you are being intentionally provocative, or are just ignorant of DEI.
ReplyDeleteYou claim that DEI is couched in vague language. If you knew anything at all about DEI, the language is not vague. It is specific. What has been done is that Trumplicans, because of their success in VA, believe running on the culture wars will be a key to victory in 2022. Consequently, they've twisted DEI concepts, and tried to add in Critical Race Theory to distort what is actually happening in education.
More importantly, Nick, you have NO EVIDENCE to back up your assertions that DEI has had a negative impact on medical education.
You also (as you have done in the past) misrepresented what I have said. MCAT scores and GPAs have some relationship to one's ability to succeed in the medical profession, similar to SATs predicting success in college. But, at best, the data suggest those relationships explain about 25% of the variance, meaning that other variables impact that relationship.
In addition, there is no such thing as an objective measure of merit. For example, tests are constructed by human beings, who bring in their own biases as to what's an effective and fair question. Evaluations by supervisors can be biased by a whole host of factors.
Finally, you have yet to provide one shred of evidence that DEI training has negatively impacted medical education and training of doctors, and have produced worse physicians than we have had in the past.
Hmm. I'm looking over the DEI language in the original article, and I'm struggling to imagine what you find "specific" about it. A medical student is supposed to "demonstrate moral courage, self-advocacy and allyship when facing and/or witnessing injustice". Oh yeah. Real specific. I could summarize that in a lot fewer words: "act woke, and we might let you be a doctor". No room for confusion or corruption of the educational process there! No, Sir.
ReplyDeleteSure, all tests are flawed, but an objective test is called an objective test because it achieves a higher level of objectivity than, say, an essay-based exam. The problem, of course, is that, generally, the more "objective" the test, the more "racist" the results, if one assumes that underperformance of non-Asian minorities is always the result of racism. Ergo, objectivity is OUT! Inclusion is IN. And who gets included? Why, those with "courage"! "Allies"! If you can't see the danger here, Rod, you're not trying very hard.
Can I prove that affirmative action has caused a diminution in the quality of doctors, or that, say, black or Hispanic doctors are more likely to face medical malpractice suits? Nope. I checked, and there are reams of data on how minorities are victims of the medical system. There's no data that I can find that might document whether doctors who benefited from affirmative action might be problematic in any way. But, after all, only a racist would ask the question in the first place...
Dr.Waddy from Jack: The argument above displays intellectual competence beyond mine. But let me introduce another factor: the human and economic cost of the acquisition (including probably undergraduate concentration in the demanding natural sciences, then four years of med school, then very challenging apprenticeship in the profession itself) of an established MD status. Faced with mandated, career short circuiting political standards which are utterly intolerant of individual beliefs, who, having given so much, could countenance jettisoning all of that?! Surely the totalitarian left knows this and is blithe to exercise such political (not professional) suppression of political dissent in a setting in which it today enjoys such intimidating presumption.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I do not include Rod in this criticism, as he is not disingenuous but in its misuse of the word "celebrate", the American left IS! To them it means: " We like this and far from giving a good goddam for any insolent enough to disagree, their certain bigotry makes our celebration manifold. Hell, we'll bathe the country's White House in appropriate colors to glory in celebration of that which is highly disturbing to them. To hell with them!
ReplyDeleteWell said! So much of what the Left is up to these days is a ratification/"celebration" of some people's feelings, coupled with an utter disdain for the feelings of you and me. Because "science" and reason tell us whose feelings matter, after all...
ReplyDelete