Tuesday, June 8, 2021

"Wokeness" threatens the very foundations of American health care

 

A profoundly disturbing article uncovers the spread of "wokeness" and so-called "anti-racism" in the medical profession in America, and how it threatens patient care, research and many other critical elements.  Here are a few excerpts.


This dogma goes by many imperfect names — wokeness, social justice, critical race theory, anti-racism — but whatever it’s called, the doctors say this ideology is stifling critical thinking and dissent in the name of progress. They say that it’s turning students against their teachers and patients and racializing even the smallest interpersonal interactions. Most concerning, they insist that it is threatening the foundations of patient care, of research, and of medicine itself.

. . .

I’ve heard from doctors who’ve been reported to their departments for criticizing residents for being late. (It was seen by their trainees as an act of racism.) I’ve heard from doctors who’ve stopped giving trainees honest feedback for fear of retaliation. I’ve spoken to those who have seen clinicians and residents refuse to treat patients based on their race or their perceived conservative politics.

Some of these doctors say that there is a “purge” underway in the world of American medicine: question the current orthodoxy and you will be pushed out. They are so worried about the dangers of speaking out about their concerns that they will not let me identify them except by the region of the country where they work. 

“People are afraid to speak honestly,” said a doctor who immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union. “It’s like back to the USSR, where you could only speak to the ones you trust.” If the authorities found out, you could lose your job, your status, you could go to jail or worse. The fear here is not dissimilar. 

When doctors do speak out, shared another, “the reaction is savage. And you better be tenured and you better have very thick skin.”

. . .

“Wokeness feels like an existential threat,” a doctor from the Northwest said. “In health care, innovation depends on open, objective inquiry into complex problems, but that’s now undermined by this simplistic and racialized worldview where racism is seen as the cause of all disparities, despite robust data showing it’s not that simple.”

“Whole research areas are off-limits,” he said, adding that some of what is being published in the nation’s top journals is “shoddy as hell.”

. . .

One prominent organization, White Coats for Black Lives, was formed by medical students in 2014 and now has at least 75 chapters all over the U.S. In addition to publishing a Racial Justice Report Card that grades medical schools, the group encourages medical students to make specific demands of their institutions, including that medical schools and hospitals end all relationships with local law enforcement.

. . .

As another example of the generation gap, an ER doctor on the West Coast said he sees providers, particularly younger ones, applying antiracist principles in choosing how they allocate their time and which patients they choose to work with.  “I've heard examples of Covid-19 cases in the emergency department where providers go, ‘I’m not going to go treat that white guy, I'm going to treat the person of color instead because whatever happened to the white guy, he probably deserves it.’”


There's much more at the link.

Never forget, this is the same poisonous, treasonous ideology that motivated the theft of the November 2020 elections through electoral fraud, and continues to justify that as necessary to get rid of populist voices in favor of those that are politically correct.

We're going to have to actively work against "wokeness" in every field of society.  It's a fight we dare not lose, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of the country we're leaving to our children.

Peter


12 comments:

  1. The solution:. "You can't run, you can't hide, now you go helicopter ride."

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  2. Not saying this isn't a thing somewhere, but I see zero evidence of it, and any doctor who tried that b.s. in any ED I worked in would be so far beyond screwed, they couldn't even see screwed from here.

    Play race games with your patients, in any direction, and your nurses are going to see to it that your patients have a difficult time, and you get left holding the bag. And then they'll chart proactively that you were told and ignored them. Then you're a woke ex-doctor, trying to keep your job and your medical license.

    Ask me how I know.

    And afterwards, you'd catch hell in the parking lot from a tire iron.

    Allegedly.

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  3. Peter, it is happening here.
    I'm in corn country, where nearly all of us are of northern European descent. The large hospital group that subsumed us hired 'diversity officers' to make us less white. To this end, they went to Canada and recruited brown nurses. (We asked. The recruiters specifically only wanted brown ones. Apparently competence was not even a consideration.) They shrugged and took the bonuses. The company arranged their visas, paid for their moves.
    We got two. The first was a thief. They quickly transferred her to another branch AND GAVE HER A MANAGEMENT JOB.
    The second was so incompetent we put her at the front trisge desk so she wouldn't kill anybody. No joke. She filed a complaint, asserting that this was 'structural racism', and we were forced to give her patient assignments.
    Thus far she has been responsible for two or three deaths due to failure to rescue. (They crashed, and she did nothing.) The doctors complained to admin, but this was also racist. Now whoever is sharing a hall with her has to carry her patients as well as their own, just to make sure nobody's circling the drain. Its exhausting, and we're all hoping not to be the one without a chair when the music stops.
    I'm now looking for jobs as a park ranger.
    J.

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  4. Thankfully we haven't seen it here...yet... Thankfully...

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  5. As a patient, I am even more careful what I will say to my physician. I say as little as possible to get in-n-out with my refills for prescriptions. Not interested in the PC BS or the latest in gene therapy.

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  6. Have not seen this where I live; but I live in a rural red state. That being said, I always speak my mind and a doctor would get an earful if that happened to me. Silencing us is part of the leftist agenda and I will not comply.

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  7. Haven't seen it where I'm at so far (suburban red state leaning toward purple). I'm not surprised that it could occur elsewhere. I would suggest lots and lots of malpractice lawsuits as a possible solution. Hitting people in the wallet seems to get their immediate attention.

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  8. Put the "woke" to "sleep" and the problem goes away.

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  9. ^That, right there.

    I repeat for emphasis: "fragging" is not something that only happen(s/ed) in Vietnam. If someone has a no-load co-worker potentially threatening someone else's job and livelihood with their shenanigans, they're going to have an accident, of the career-ending type, possibly worse, within a matter of days, and it's going to look exactly like an accident. Maybe the offending party will still be able to walk afterwards, someday. Maybe even eat solid food. And then again, maybe not. Let him who has ears, hear.

    I share, yet again, the timeless advice of Guido The Killer Pimp from Risky Business:

    "You look like a smart kid. So I'm gonna tell you something which I'm sure you'll understand. You're having fun, right? Time of your life? In a sluggish economy, never, EVER, f**k with another man's livelihood. Now, if you're smart, like I hope you are, you're not gonna make me come back here."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cS0_op1IE

    Somebody wants to save the gay whales for Jesus? ROWYBS.

    You want to take food off my table and money out of my wallet? Put your affairs in order.

    Go woke, get broke.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Having been in Cancer therapy, and dealing with the subsequent collateral damage, I deal with the medical community more than most.

    I don't see this from Doctors, of which I have every type, although no soul brothers or sisters. Most are over 40, and very competant. I did see it from a Vet I took my dog to see. Black dude couldn't give a shit about me or my dog. It was my one and only visit there.

    Where I see it is from the lesser apes and gibbons hanging on the medical tree. I've seen rank indifference and flat out incompetence. Phlebotomists are the worst. I've had more than one black girl act as if she was doing me a herculean favor just by doing her job. In the middle of chemo, I had one particularly cruel physicians assistant (the fool that takes your vitals) let me sit in the exam room for an hour. She was the worst, displaying the other irritating thing black service people (usually women) do - overdoing politeness to the point of insult - "Now Mr. Smith, can you step on the scale for me? thank you Mr. Smith.."

    Lot of ways to deal with this. First is to not tolerate bs. The second time I waited 20 minutes for a therapist assistant (who was watching a movie on his mobile) to put heat on my shoulder - I walked. Never to return. When they called, I had words with the therapist, who hung up on me when I told her that it wasn't my job to make her dysfunctional employees do theirs. Doctor is an asshole? Get another. there are thousands here.

    The other way is complain. Nearly every medical system and Doctor office I attend sends customer satisfaction surveys. I respond honestly. If I was treated shabbiliy, I say so. They tie themselves to that social media fuzzy belly rub customer service? put metal shavings in the belly rub powder.

    But the good Nurses, in a well run group, will self correct. Aesop was 100% here. My brother-in-law needed surgery and wanted to have it in the hospital where my older sister is a head nurse. So she sent him to a doctor that would make this happen. Dude was rude as hell. So my sister talked to our older sister. Next visit, the Doc is pleasant and super helpful. Pulled my sister aside and said "Why didn't you tell me your sister was Mary (the head nurse)"

    Let's say the nurses running a tight ship can make a doctors day very dark and dreary.

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  11. “People are afraid to speak honestly,” said a doctor who immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union. “It’s like back to the USSR, where you could only speak to the ones you trust.”

    I was just talking with a fellow former USSR resident (not "citizen") and he was complaining he was starting to have to Sovietize his kids - say nothing outside the house, head down, etc.

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  12. @TechieDude,

    If you found a physician's assistant (MS degree, minimum) taking vital signs, I'll eat my undershorts.

    What you're probably referring to is a medical assistant: no post-secondary education, professional license, no certificate, just a couple of weeks of minimal training in some diploma mill for flunkies with GEDs and 80 IQs and soft hands to work indoors, instead of digging ditches, mopping floors, or bussing tables.

    FWIW Medical Rule #1: the more white the person you see is wearing, the lower on the medical totem pole hierarchy they are.

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