Physician calls out top med programs for prioritizing ‘wokeism’ over training ‘good doctors’

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania’s (UPenn) Perelman School of Medicine, recently argued that top U.S. medical programs are prioritizing “wokeism” over “good doctors.”

Goldfarb’s NY Post op-ed claimed that “[e]lite medical schools are deliberately recruiting woke activists, jeopardizing their mission of training physicians.”

Goldfarb, who also serves as Chairman of Do No Harm, an organization pushing back against identity politics in healthcare, spoke with Campus Reform about his decision to fight against woke ideologies infiltrating the medical field.

“I began Do No Harm and wrote a book, Take Two Aspirins and Call Me By My Pronouns, in response to these concerns once it became clear that my fears were realized after virtually all of academic medicine took pledges to commit to antiracism and other woke actions in the response to the killing of George Floyd,” Goldfarb told Campus Reform.

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Campus Reform also spoke with University of Arkansas medical student Eva Allen about alleged ‘wokeism’ in medical school.

“As someone applying for medical school right now, I know that the Association of American Medical Colleges is just as woke as all of the other elite and liberal arts colleges across the nation,” Allen told Campus Reform.

Allen also discussed the importance of treating each patient as an individual, rather than as a member of a group.

“Clumping all patients of one race, sexual orientation, or religion into a box of victimhood does nothing to help provide quality medical care,” she said.

Kelsey Richmond, a medical student at Misericordia University, supports DEI-initiatives in medical programs, but does not think they should be prioritized.

“I agree that medical personnel should learn inclusion and diversity due to having to work with all different types of people; however, training in diversity and inclusion should never be prioritized over learning how to give proper care,” Richmond told Campus Reform.

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Do No Harm recently conducted research looking into some of the country’s most elite medical schools. The organization’s 2022 report found that of the 50 “top-ranked medical schools… 36 asked applicants their views on, or experience in, DEI efforts.”

“Many were overt in asking applicants if they agreed with certain statements about racial politics and the causes of disparate health outcomes,” the report continued. 

The report also reveals that “72 percent of the top 50 medical schools, and 80 percent of the top 10 schools, use probing questions to elicit responses from the applicant about his or her views on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics.”

Goldfarb warned in his op-ed that “[r]ecruiting woke activists instead of the most qualified candidates will both undermine trust in health care and lead to worse health outcomes for patients.”

“That’s the last thing medical schools should do,” he wrote.

Campus Reform reached out to each institution mentioned in this article. This article will be updated accordingly.

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