‘I spent over 50 years as a physician and educator at Penn Med. Now I’m using civil rights legislation to protect the profession—and American patients.’
While Do No Harm's mandate is laudible and sorely needed I fear that universities and other insitutions don't actually eliminate the race requirements once legally challenged, they just stop saying the quiet part out loud, at least for now.
I also fear that the majority of the author's peers do not actually share his viewpoint. I used to assume the same about my friends and colleagues, but the more I dare share my real opinons these days the more isolated I feel. Every year I feel a bit more like the woman, the last real human, at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
In ten years, if I require the needs of a doctor, I’m going to be more than hesitant to choose one who is black or Hispanic. Five years ago, race of my health provider would have been nothing but incidental (well you have to be smart to get into med school right?) Instead, I’ll likely question their background; was he a DEI initiative graduate or did he get through on merit.? Well it’s my health and I can’t take the chance that he was pushed through med school because of his ethnicity, so I’m going to select the Indian, Asian or white doctor because given how skewed the admission requirements are against them, they must not only be bright, but likely top of their class. At the end of the day demand for good doctors should correct progressive garbage like this. Someone once commented (I apologize I can’t source it) that professional sports is the last place where meritocracy prevails. How bloody sad.
First, a giant thank you to Dr. Goldfarb for taking this on. I'm truly amazed at how fast this condition (DEI infection) took root. The fear of being called racist, and what I think is the real desire to help these communities has allowed a DEI apparatus to form and take root in nearly no time. I also couldn't help notice the parallel at Penn, where in the name of "inclusion" they have allowed a man to pretend to be female, and ascend to the pinnacle of women's swimming. There is something rotten at the top of these organizations, namely weak leadership without the courage to stand up to a mob.
As an RN I am profoundly grateful to you Dr Goldfarb for taking up this fight!..my eyes to the corrosion of the medical profession were opened during Covid. Having worked through it and having family members hospitalized because of it I tell everyone I know that never in my life or time as an RN did I see the government tell doctors how they could and could not treat patients! And in many places with the risk of losing a license! This is all government doing..destroying everything they give money to, and therefore can over regulate and control! Keep fighting the good fight!!
As a supporter of Do No Harm since I first learned of its existence a few months after it was launched, and now honored to be regarded as a visiting Fellow of DNH, I agree with Dr. Goldfarb that physicians must be on the front lines in pushing back against illiberal, often explicitly racist, and simply wrong efforts to achieve some misconstrued, ill-defined "equity" to society in general, and medicine specifically. Many physicians are clueless regarding the capture of medicine by radical advocates of critical race theory, which underlies all DEI programs and policies. I only hope it is not too late. After thirty years as a Fellow in good standing of the American College of Surgeons, I was banned for life from engagement with my fellow surgeons on the ACS discussion forums for objecting to the installation of DEI/CRT inititatives in the ACS. My ban was enacted in clear violation of the rules and bylaws of the ACS by a leadership that has been captured by DEI zealots. I am fighting back with a petition for reinstatement of my rights and for the right of all Fellows in the ACS to be allowed open and uncensored discourse on issues such as DEI/CRT. Please read and sign my petition. https://www.change.org/ACS-petition-reinstate-Bosshardt
Is it racism, communism, totalitarianism, or fascism that are destroying the Western meritocracy that has created the best outcomes for humanity this planet has ever seen? Or is it ABSURDISM, a force-fed ideology in which rationality is purged from conventional wisdom? When the solution to race-based hiring is to legally require more race-based hiring, when men can have babies, when gender is a personal choice, when resisting the surgical and chemical mutilation of children is a crime, when teachers decide that drag queens playing dress-up are role models for children, when the world’s elite fly in private jets to berate plebeians over their carbon footprints, when everything that reason, evidence and consistency leads us to is “wrong”, you have the perfect weapon for defeating individual initiative and reasoning because, after all, who wants to always be “wrong”? Absurdism is a cancer eating the soul of reason and enlightened individualism.
For all the other culture war content that gets spread about, I think the average person still vastly underestimates the impact of it on medicine. If you are a physician who needs to be employed to practice (as many do), you have to do whatever your employer says. If your licensing board or specialty certifying board imposes requirements, you can't get out of them. If CMS or the Joint Comission imposes requirements, you have to meet them. It isn't a question of what your average doctor thinks. All of them can be brought in line forcibly, by many different methods.
But as to what the average doctor thinks, understand that medicine requires many years of education and training. The people who write for the NYT or who run censorship operations at Twitter or who staff Title IX offices, by and large are not old enough to be attending physicians. When that generation takes over the medical profession, the real effects of its miseducation will become apparent, and they will dwarf any sort of "institutional rot" that has happened thusfar.
And if you are a patient who goes into the emergency room, you can't pick another doctor.
DEI practices are profoundly ignorant of cause and effect. Sorry to say, when I see a DEI badge on an email signature my first thought is: LOW IQ. LOW IQ narcissists are pushing this. It's all about how "good" the narcissists are, and not about truly helping PWAW -- the acronym I'd like to get going for People Who Aren't White.
The only way to help a certain faction of PWAW is to hold them to the same standards as everyone else. Why, you might ask? Because when you put a certain faction of PWAW into positions that require exactness, discipline, and cause and effect thinking, and they're not up to par with these traits, they destroy everything they touch, which perpetuates the very racism the "good" aim to cure.
Or DO they? Narcissists will often effect situations designed to convince their prey that there's something wrong with them. So when they make doctors of the ineligible to be doctors, they are encouraging them to fail. And by nurturing failure, the narcissist white people behind this juggernaut will remain pleased with themselves. After all, they need to be superior, and they need PWAW to be dependent on their "goodwill."
The terrible thing about DEI programs in medicine is that they perpetuate stereotypes. If you knew that admissions to all medical schools was color-blind, would you have any concerns that a medical specialist assigned to your care was from a minority group? No. Everyone had to meet the same tough standards to get in and earn the MD after their name.
On the other hand, if you know that your specialist got in to medical school only because of lowered standards for minority candidates, you might be very concerned. And rightfully so.
Work on improving elementary and high school education for disadvantaged kids so that they can get into medical school on merit! Lowering standards is pernicious and will lead to more senseless deaths and bad medical outcomes.
I’m a PENN med graduate who also completed a residency and fellowship there, a total of ten years! I was well trained, and the near absolute meritocracy of the institution was legendary. We had many minority and women faculty, trainees, and professors. Not enough in the surgical specialties but that was not due to any institutional prejudices.
The institution Dr. Goldfarb describes now is foreign to my experience, and saddens me tremendously.
They just got hit with a $183 million verdict in a “bad baby” case. Maybe that’s what it will take, if indeed that case revolves around incompetent physician care, to move the needle back toward educating excellence and advancing merit over some social ideal that doesn’t exist in human disease and injury.
"Call out discrimination done in the name of 'equity' and 'anti-racism.' Recognize that the majority of your peers may share your views, even if they stay quiet."
And, my friends, isn't it also time to call out silence in the face of insanity and true racism for what it is - cowardice? Do not stay silent. We are losing our nation and our society to madness. This is a leftist plot, the purpose of which is not to make America a just place, but to weaken America. To divide us and foment race hatred. The people behind it hate our nation. Treat them like the enemy they are.
as the other commenter highlighted, eliminating discriminatory policies won't necessary lead to actual elimination of discrimination. The way to achieve your goal would be to demand full and extreme transparency of the execution of such policies. Just like discrimination against minorities is hidden in black boxes, so is discrimination against others.
Funny you should say that. Over forty years ago, the affirmative action push delivered to my medical school one Dr. M.A., alleged nephrologist and kidney transplant surgeon. In those days we were still learning about transplantation, rejection, and anti-rejection drugs, but kidney transplants had become fairly commonplace. Dr. A., who was black, was the proud graduate of an HBCU - historically black college/university medical school/residency, and seemed to be a pleasant-enough fellow.
The problem was that as time wore on, this transplant specialist's success rate with transplanted kidney's "taking" approached zero. His patients went to ICU after surgery and received close monitoring but always seemed to have stormy courses terminating with the loss of the kidney - and sometimes the patient themselves. As a third-year medical student, I just put it down to the difficulty of the process.
Then the Good Doctor undertook to teach a short class in "Fluid Balance and Acid-Base Chemistry." I signed up immediately, but was disappointed. His lectures seemed confused, disorganized, which I attributed to my being a green medical student, but over time it became very clear that he didn't fully understand the fundamentals of renal physiology - how the kidney regulates blood pressure, the body's pH, or regulation of body chemistry. In short, he didn't know enough basic science to do his job.
Ditching merit for some naive SJW goal is a loss for everybody - for those competing, those who receive services of SJW graduates, and the competitors themselves - put into jobs they plainly cannot do, only to suffer lifelong as the frauds they know they are. It's time - well past time - to fight back. I'm applying for admission in Do No Harm. Today.
While Do No Harm's mandate is laudible and sorely needed I fear that universities and other insitutions don't actually eliminate the race requirements once legally challenged, they just stop saying the quiet part out loud, at least for now.
I also fear that the majority of the author's peers do not actually share his viewpoint. I used to assume the same about my friends and colleagues, but the more I dare share my real opinons these days the more isolated I feel. Every year I feel a bit more like the woman, the last real human, at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
In ten years, if I require the needs of a doctor, I’m going to be more than hesitant to choose one who is black or Hispanic. Five years ago, race of my health provider would have been nothing but incidental (well you have to be smart to get into med school right?) Instead, I’ll likely question their background; was he a DEI initiative graduate or did he get through on merit.? Well it’s my health and I can’t take the chance that he was pushed through med school because of his ethnicity, so I’m going to select the Indian, Asian or white doctor because given how skewed the admission requirements are against them, they must not only be bright, but likely top of their class. At the end of the day demand for good doctors should correct progressive garbage like this. Someone once commented (I apologize I can’t source it) that professional sports is the last place where meritocracy prevails. How bloody sad.
First, a giant thank you to Dr. Goldfarb for taking this on. I'm truly amazed at how fast this condition (DEI infection) took root. The fear of being called racist, and what I think is the real desire to help these communities has allowed a DEI apparatus to form and take root in nearly no time. I also couldn't help notice the parallel at Penn, where in the name of "inclusion" they have allowed a man to pretend to be female, and ascend to the pinnacle of women's swimming. There is something rotten at the top of these organizations, namely weak leadership without the courage to stand up to a mob.
As an RN I am profoundly grateful to you Dr Goldfarb for taking up this fight!..my eyes to the corrosion of the medical profession were opened during Covid. Having worked through it and having family members hospitalized because of it I tell everyone I know that never in my life or time as an RN did I see the government tell doctors how they could and could not treat patients! And in many places with the risk of losing a license! This is all government doing..destroying everything they give money to, and therefore can over regulate and control! Keep fighting the good fight!!
As a supporter of Do No Harm since I first learned of its existence a few months after it was launched, and now honored to be regarded as a visiting Fellow of DNH, I agree with Dr. Goldfarb that physicians must be on the front lines in pushing back against illiberal, often explicitly racist, and simply wrong efforts to achieve some misconstrued, ill-defined "equity" to society in general, and medicine specifically. Many physicians are clueless regarding the capture of medicine by radical advocates of critical race theory, which underlies all DEI programs and policies. I only hope it is not too late. After thirty years as a Fellow in good standing of the American College of Surgeons, I was banned for life from engagement with my fellow surgeons on the ACS discussion forums for objecting to the installation of DEI/CRT inititatives in the ACS. My ban was enacted in clear violation of the rules and bylaws of the ACS by a leadership that has been captured by DEI zealots. I am fighting back with a petition for reinstatement of my rights and for the right of all Fellows in the ACS to be allowed open and uncensored discourse on issues such as DEI/CRT. Please read and sign my petition. https://www.change.org/ACS-petition-reinstate-Bosshardt
Is it racism, communism, totalitarianism, or fascism that are destroying the Western meritocracy that has created the best outcomes for humanity this planet has ever seen? Or is it ABSURDISM, a force-fed ideology in which rationality is purged from conventional wisdom? When the solution to race-based hiring is to legally require more race-based hiring, when men can have babies, when gender is a personal choice, when resisting the surgical and chemical mutilation of children is a crime, when teachers decide that drag queens playing dress-up are role models for children, when the world’s elite fly in private jets to berate plebeians over their carbon footprints, when everything that reason, evidence and consistency leads us to is “wrong”, you have the perfect weapon for defeating individual initiative and reasoning because, after all, who wants to always be “wrong”? Absurdism is a cancer eating the soul of reason and enlightened individualism.
DEI is sabotaging everything it touches. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are false premises...
DEI is the gateway to mediocrity.
For all the other culture war content that gets spread about, I think the average person still vastly underestimates the impact of it on medicine. If you are a physician who needs to be employed to practice (as many do), you have to do whatever your employer says. If your licensing board or specialty certifying board imposes requirements, you can't get out of them. If CMS or the Joint Comission imposes requirements, you have to meet them. It isn't a question of what your average doctor thinks. All of them can be brought in line forcibly, by many different methods.
But as to what the average doctor thinks, understand that medicine requires many years of education and training. The people who write for the NYT or who run censorship operations at Twitter or who staff Title IX offices, by and large are not old enough to be attending physicians. When that generation takes over the medical profession, the real effects of its miseducation will become apparent, and they will dwarf any sort of "institutional rot" that has happened thusfar.
And if you are a patient who goes into the emergency room, you can't pick another doctor.
DEI practices are profoundly ignorant of cause and effect. Sorry to say, when I see a DEI badge on an email signature my first thought is: LOW IQ. LOW IQ narcissists are pushing this. It's all about how "good" the narcissists are, and not about truly helping PWAW -- the acronym I'd like to get going for People Who Aren't White.
The only way to help a certain faction of PWAW is to hold them to the same standards as everyone else. Why, you might ask? Because when you put a certain faction of PWAW into positions that require exactness, discipline, and cause and effect thinking, and they're not up to par with these traits, they destroy everything they touch, which perpetuates the very racism the "good" aim to cure.
Or DO they? Narcissists will often effect situations designed to convince their prey that there's something wrong with them. So when they make doctors of the ineligible to be doctors, they are encouraging them to fail. And by nurturing failure, the narcissist white people behind this juggernaut will remain pleased with themselves. After all, they need to be superior, and they need PWAW to be dependent on their "goodwill."
The terrible thing about DEI programs in medicine is that they perpetuate stereotypes. If you knew that admissions to all medical schools was color-blind, would you have any concerns that a medical specialist assigned to your care was from a minority group? No. Everyone had to meet the same tough standards to get in and earn the MD after their name.
On the other hand, if you know that your specialist got in to medical school only because of lowered standards for minority candidates, you might be very concerned. And rightfully so.
Work on improving elementary and high school education for disadvantaged kids so that they can get into medical school on merit! Lowering standards is pernicious and will lead to more senseless deaths and bad medical outcomes.
I’m a PENN med graduate who also completed a residency and fellowship there, a total of ten years! I was well trained, and the near absolute meritocracy of the institution was legendary. We had many minority and women faculty, trainees, and professors. Not enough in the surgical specialties but that was not due to any institutional prejudices.
The institution Dr. Goldfarb describes now is foreign to my experience, and saddens me tremendously.
They just got hit with a $183 million verdict in a “bad baby” case. Maybe that’s what it will take, if indeed that case revolves around incompetent physician care, to move the needle back toward educating excellence and advancing merit over some social ideal that doesn’t exist in human disease and injury.
"Call out discrimination done in the name of 'equity' and 'anti-racism.' Recognize that the majority of your peers may share your views, even if they stay quiet."
And, my friends, isn't it also time to call out silence in the face of insanity and true racism for what it is - cowardice? Do not stay silent. We are losing our nation and our society to madness. This is a leftist plot, the purpose of which is not to make America a just place, but to weaken America. To divide us and foment race hatred. The people behind it hate our nation. Treat them like the enemy they are.
Liberals are directly responsible and should be openly mocked.
as the other commenter highlighted, eliminating discriminatory policies won't necessary lead to actual elimination of discrimination. The way to achieve your goal would be to demand full and extreme transparency of the execution of such policies. Just like discrimination against minorities is hidden in black boxes, so is discrimination against others.
Funny you should say that. Over forty years ago, the affirmative action push delivered to my medical school one Dr. M.A., alleged nephrologist and kidney transplant surgeon. In those days we were still learning about transplantation, rejection, and anti-rejection drugs, but kidney transplants had become fairly commonplace. Dr. A., who was black, was the proud graduate of an HBCU - historically black college/university medical school/residency, and seemed to be a pleasant-enough fellow.
The problem was that as time wore on, this transplant specialist's success rate with transplanted kidney's "taking" approached zero. His patients went to ICU after surgery and received close monitoring but always seemed to have stormy courses terminating with the loss of the kidney - and sometimes the patient themselves. As a third-year medical student, I just put it down to the difficulty of the process.
Then the Good Doctor undertook to teach a short class in "Fluid Balance and Acid-Base Chemistry." I signed up immediately, but was disappointed. His lectures seemed confused, disorganized, which I attributed to my being a green medical student, but over time it became very clear that he didn't fully understand the fundamentals of renal physiology - how the kidney regulates blood pressure, the body's pH, or regulation of body chemistry. In short, he didn't know enough basic science to do his job.
Ditching merit for some naive SJW goal is a loss for everybody - for those competing, those who receive services of SJW graduates, and the competitors themselves - put into jobs they plainly cannot do, only to suffer lifelong as the frauds they know they are. It's time - well past time - to fight back. I'm applying for admission in Do No Harm. Today.
addendum: done.