A soon-to-be released book aims to shed light on the left’s ideological takeover of American medicine and calls for a return to merit and science-based care and education.
“Doing Great Harm?,” authored by Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, exposes how the medical industry has become overrun with identity politics and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at the expense of Americans’ health, and proposes a restoration of “sanity to American medicine.” Goldfarb told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview that he wrote the book because “the public deserves to hear these things.”
One of the issues plaguing the medical industry today, Goldfarb said, is medical schools lowering admissions standards for nonwhite students, allowing a higher percentage to be admitted but thereby leading to worse outcomes for medical professionals and in medicine as a whole. (RELATED: ‘Dangerous Trend’: Medical Schools Are Ditching Standardized Tests In The Name Of ‘Diversity’)
“We know that minorities are being admitted to medical school is much lower levels of qualification some of them, some of them are perfectly great, but some of them have much less fewer accomplishments, for example, much lower scores on achievement tests like the MCAT exam, and much lower grades and not going to competitive colleges,” Goldfarb told the DCNF. “And we show in the book how when, they’ve been assessed further on in their careers, in residency, and even beyond this academic, lack of academic achievement plays out in less good health care.”
“So I think we can make a pretty good case that there’s no benefit and potential real decreased quality when we have this focus on identity rather than on intellectual achievements and academic achievements that the medical student should have as well as the faculty member should have,” Goldfarb continued.
In 2023, around 40 medical schools dropped the requirement for standardized testing in the name of “diversity.” Do No Harm found in March that medical schools are also growing increasingly “woke,” with 77% of mission statements including a reference to DEI language.
Curriculum in medical schools has also been affected, with many schools requiring some sort of DEI training. Along with setting up systems to help hire, advance and promote specifically minority students and staff, many schools require students “take a university provided training related to diversity and inclusion, implicit bias, and anti-racism.”
“If, every week, they have to spend hours on social issues and go to classes that are completely devoted to these issues, that’s time that they can’t learn the things that really matter in caring for patients,” Goldfarb stated.
Doing Great Harm? New Book By Dr. Stanley Goldfarb
Medical associations have also become detrimental to medicine in recent years, Goldfarb said. These associations are “the main educational source for physicians once they finish their formal education” and “have a huge impact, because they kind of determine what the nature of care is going to be,” Goldfarb told the DCNF.
The associations are responsible for issuing guidance in support of sex change procedures for minors and abortion. With this public support, judges often turn to these organizations when deciding whether to uphold or strike down laws relating to these issues, assuming the guidance represents medical consensus with patients’ wellbeing in mind, Goldfarb told the DCNF.
“They’re the most authoritative organizations, and it’s been really difficult to get them to change their minds,” Goldfarb said. “And the reason for that is that they’ve given over these things to a small cadre of activists, and rather than sort of take them on and really find it out in the most rigorous, scientific way, they just kind of let the activist take over, because they don’t want to be accused of being transphobic or racist or what have you. These are the tools of the progressives.”
Another focus of Goldfarb’s book, and of Do No Harm as a whole, has been fighting back against the medical gender transitioning of children. Goldfarb told the DCNF he is happy with the work the Trump administration and numerous states have done on the issue so far, but emphasized the need for a continued effort to root out medical transitions for minors altogether.
A recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report found that “science and evidence do not support” the use of medical interventions on gender confused children, stating that “activist agendas” were behind the push for such procedures. The United Kingdom’s medical system entirely banned the use of puberty blockers for kids, finding an “unacceptable safety risk.”
“We’ve had a number of laws passed. We want to sort of enhance those laws,” Goldfarb said. “For example, some of the laws now around the states, 26 states, say we can’t do surgery on children, but allow the medications to go on. So we continue to work at the state level to try to get rid of that activity as well, because there’s plenty of evidence now that these medications that these kids take, many of them, are not irreversible at all.”
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org