EXCLUSIVE — Recordings of a class at a medical school in Chicago showed a professor telling students that white people "avoid social accountability" and that ascribing health outcomes to individual behavior ignores "structural influences."
The recordings were of "Principles of Professionalism, Health Care, and Health Equity," a class at the medical school of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. The recordings, along with a syllabus of the class, were obtained by the medical watchdog group Do No Harm and shared with the Washington Examiner.
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The recordings provide a window into the course, with the unnamed course professor using language commonly associated with critical race theory. Critical race theory posits that the institutions and the culture of the United States are systemically racist and oppressive to racial minorities, especially black people.
According to the materials obtained by Do No Harm, the professor says race "is not scientific nor biological" and that the idea that black people are inferior is "a dominant narrative perpetuated by medicine."
"Who benefits [from this narrative]?" the professor asks in the video, "Whites or the dominant class. The privileges of the dominant class are rationalized. They get to avoid the social accountability."
In another video, the instructor tells students that cases of "naturalizing inequality" encourage doctors to focus on a person's behavior and genetics to explain various health conditions.
“With overemphasis on culture, individual behavior, and biology and genetics to explain poor health, we are missing the opportunity to address why people are sick," the slide presented in the course reads.
The professor notes that the "core tenet of conservative ideology" is "that your behavior is the main factor in your life" while explaining that focusing on a person's behavior ignores "structural forces" that lead to poor health outcomes. The professor cited people saying that George Floyd was "not a saint" or media pundits focusing on a mass shooter's "record of behavior."
"This is all a distraction," she said. "Focusing on just individual-level behavior leaves out the structural influences on his life."
“Individualistic, moralistic thinking like this,” she added, “is unfortunately common in healthcare in today’s world.”
The course also assigned several other resources, including a TED talk and a research paper, that argue that the medical industry is steeped in racism. One paper, titled "White Privilege in a White Coat: How Racism Shaped my Medical Education," alleges that "white physicians seldom ask how their own racial privilege reinforces a white supremacist culture and what effects this may have on our patients’ health.”
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Do No Harm program manager Laura Morgan said that the presenter in the recordings is "really reaching to find a social cause for health disparities" and that her rhetoric and the course were dividing students based on the color of their skin.
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"The presenter at the Chicago Medical School is really reaching to find a social cause for health disparities by referring to incidents that have no bearing on healthcare and only serve to divide students based on skin color," Morgan said. "Medical students need to receive instruction on how to improve access to care for their future patients instead of identifying groups of people as either oppressed or oppressors."
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science did not respond to a request for comment.