“On Oct. 30, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits all medical schools in the United States and is co-sponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), released a guide to ‘advancing health equity’ through ‘language, narrative, and concepts,” (PJMedia.com).
Their ideas would lead one to believe that we have traveled back in time to the early 1800s when a woman might be reluctant to see a doctor because he is male, and a doctor, especially in the South might be reluctant to care for a Black patient. Of course, we have not. But alas, they find somehow that only through their language and concepts can a Nancy Pelosi and her husband who are multimillionaires and an elderly couple in Appalachia or a Black couple in the Southside of Chicago get the same quality of health care. Their concepts include that “individualism and meritocracy” are “malignant narratives” that “create harm,” that arguing that race is genetic “leads directly to racial health inequities,” and that the vulnerability to certain diseases are the “result of socially created processes” rather than biology
Let’s look at these one by one. Individualism is a malignant narrative that creates harm, they say. In other words, I need to think like you, act like you, speak like you, be a clone of you in everything but the appearance which I cannot change. I cannot have ideas of my own, only the ideas that the government ( or in this case the medical schools) perpetuate. What if that lack of individualism had been the norm for hundreds of years? Where would we find the Eli Whitneys, the Benjamin Franklins, the Henry Fords? Where would be the leaders who rose up to lead their people when no one else could do it, like Moses, or Winston Churchill, or Abraham Lincoln, or FDR? If there had been no individualism, explorers would never have crossed the Atlantic because they would have believed, as did most of their time, that the world was flat and they would fall off the edge. If there had been no one who was an independent thinker, we would still believe the sun revolved around the world, that witches existed who needed to be burned at the stake, that no one could walk on the moon or travel through space. Individualism is what makes the world a wonderful and exciting place to live as we exchange ideas and learn new things from others. Group think, which is the opposite of individualism, creates stupidity and mob violence. Conservatives promote individualism. Leftists wish to eliminate it.
Meritocracy is also called a malignant narrative that creates harm. So, by their argument, when I was a teacher I should never have rewarded the person who answered all the test questions correctly by giving him an A. I should instead have given everyone who actually took the test a Pass for having taken it, even if they missed all of the questions on the test. I would have graduated French students who knew not a single word of French and English students who could not write a coherent sentence, much less punctuate it correctly. Getting rid of meritocracy means that no airline pilot is hired because he/she is an excellent pilot, but because he is black or she is a woman. I fear riding in such airplanes, but I fear more going into surgery with a surgeon who became a doctor not by merit but by the color of his/her skin or gender. When the first of the idiots who came up with these ideas goes under the knife, don’t you think he will want to know how qualified his doctor actually is? I think, all of a sudden, meritocracy will become very important to him or her! It is to Dr. Jeff Singer, a general surgeon in Arizona.
“They’re trying to superimpose social science onto medical science,” he said. “But as a consumer of health care, I’d just like to know that whoever is treating me is qualified. Because my life is on the line.”
As for race, they claim that it has no “scientific or genetic” basis. Hum. My hair is blond and I am very light skinned because my parents and ancestors were all Scandinavian. That makes it genetic. Other people whose ancestors trace back to many backgrounds may have black hair, red hair, brown hair and skin that, unlike mine, tans beautifully instead of burning. And that isn’t genetic? Then what is it? Scientists have proven that genetics and DNA determine what we look like and what health problems we may be susceptible to. Why else do our doctors ask if high blood pressure or breast cancer run in our families? And how does this lead to racial inequities? If I were Jewish and about to be married, I would want to know if I or my fiancé carried the Tay-Sachs gene, and if I were Black, I would be concerned about Sickle Cell Disease. How does accepting that Race is genetic not helpful in preventing unnecessary deaths and illnesses? Admitting that Race is genetic does not create inequities or inequalities in health care. Those inequalities come from where an individual lives (big city with excellent hospitals and doctors or deep in the country far from such quick, skilled care) or how much money the individual has. I bet Nancy Pelosi’s health needs are taken care of a lot better than that of a white elderly woman living in Appalachia!
And finally, “medical vulnerability is the “result of socially created processes” rather than biology. This is the most dangerous of all. This denies the science that says that I suffer from Familial (or Essential) Tremors because my grandfather, my father, and at least one aunt did. And it would say that some social process has determined that one cousin in South Dakota and one in Texas also suffer from this same “family curse” as I do here in Illinois. What socially created process led to the three of us, in vastly different areas of the country, suffering from the same (and luckily only annoying rather than deadly) condition? And will that mean that young doctors will no longer look at history of heart attacks, high blood pressure, various types of cancer when advising us in life style changes or prescribing medications? If so, many people will suffer and die needlessly.
It is annoying at times and other times really funny to listen to the illogical, unscientific premises of the “Party of Science,” but when “wokeness” moves into medical schools, it is funny no longer. When truth is only what they say truth is, fact is only what they say is fact, and science is only what they call science, no matter how absurd their ideas are, I am glad that my doctor has already completed med school. But I worry for my grandkids!