Ever since the Supreme Court struck down systemic racism in college admissions, the systemic racism lobby has been up in arms. The real problem here isn’t that the Supreme Court jettisoned legal affirmative action, it’s that the majority of the public agrees with the decision. Including black people.

How to convince them otherwise? Announce that without affirmative action everyone will die.

The end of affirmative action will lead to more preventable deaths – The Hill

As a Black female physician, I’m basically a unicorn. We make up just 2.8 percent of doctors. Even before the Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action, this lack of diversity posed real harm for patients. This ruling will make a bad situation far worse. Outlawing affirmative action will decrease the diversity of incoming medical school classes and reduce the already low rates of physicians of color, with measurable harm to vulnerable patients. All Americans will bear the burden of a less diverse health care field and sicker citizens.

Selecting doctors based on merit rather than skin color will lead to healthier citizens. The ‘health care field’ doesn’t need to be diverse, it needs to be competent and qualified.

And Dr. Gipson has admitted that affirmative action wasn’t even working anyway.

Studies show that people who are underrepresented in medicine cannot achieve enough education or money to overcome the ills of systemic racism that lead to worse education and health outcomes.

So the solution is to give them worse health care?

Also shouldn’t some class in med school have taught Dr. Gipson the difference between causation and correlation?

Affirmative action ensures an increase in the diversity of the medical student pipeline, creating better physicians from all backgrounds and leading to better health outcomes for all patients.

Even assuming that black doctors produce better results for black patients that’s far from a “better health outcomes for all patients”. And even the former part remains quite dubious.

For instance, a 2021 study in Oakland found that racial concordance between patients and doctors increased patients’ interest in prevention

That’s not better medical care, it’s better patient behavior. If patients need a doctor of the same race to tell them to stop eating junk food, well that’s not a medical problem, it’s a counselling or outreach problem.

We don’t need to build a systemically racist health care system to cope with that.

For instance, a physician savvy enough to ask if a patient can afford healthy foods and medications could stave off a costly emergency department visit for a stroke.

That’s not the job of the doctor and there’s not much he can do about it if the patient can’t afford the food.

Dr. Gipson keeps confusing doctors with social workers. Selecting for diversity apparently not only leads to worse health care, but to less doctors staying in their lane and doing their job.