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Doctors Who Fight the Extremists in Medical Practice
If you read Dr. Bastiat’s most recent post describing the bizarre symposium on transgender education, you might have found yourself shaking your head in disbelief at such an outrageous agenda. That an elite medical school like Emory is presenting such curricula is unimaginable. But they are. It’s tempting to think that the entire medical community has drunk the Kool-Aid (except for the doctors among us at Ricochet).
I was inspired, however, to learn recently that all doctors have not gone mad or caved in to the transgender propaganda. A relatively new leader in these efforts is Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a kidney specialist and a professor emeritus and former associate dean at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School; he retired in 2021 and founded a new organization, Do No Harm, in 2022. I’m amused that he refuses to be interviewed by most of the mainstream media, but will respond to them through email. (He’s obviously got their number.) He answered an inquiry from the Associated Press with this email:
Do No Harm works to protect children from extreme gender ideology through original research, coalition-building, testimonials from parents and patients who’ve lived through deeply troubling experiences, and advocacy for the rigorous, apolitical study of gender dysphoria.
States that appear to have modeled their gender-affirming restrictions after the Do No Harm language are Montana, Arkansas, and Iowa. A young woman who decided to reverse her transition, Chloe Cole, 18, has appeared in Idaho, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and Ohio.
Do No Harm has already received a major financial award for its work:
It won a $250,000 award last year called the Gregor Peterson Prize. Previous recipients include the Center for American Liberty, led by Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who advised former President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and who is representing Cole in her lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente over gender-transition treatments she now says she regrets. The prize was announced in December at a summit held by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a prominent provider of conservative model legislation.
This radical ideology is being foisted upon the medical community through claims that doctors and their organizations are systemically racist. Medical schools, medical publications, and the government are complicit in pushing this agenda. As Dr. Goldfarb explained in the Wall Street Journal:
And the Biden administration is offering higher Medicare reimbursement rates to hospitals and physicians who ‘create and implement an anti-racism plan.’ To fight their supposed bias, physicians are being bribed into discriminating by race.
Dr. Goldfarb is working hard to maintain the integrity of the medical profession, criticizing the fabricated issue of race, speaking out against the propaganda of transgenderism, noting the questioning that will occur about the qualifications of our doctors, and wondering where we can find doctors who value the doctor/patient relationship. His website lists the lawsuits the organization is pursuing, as well as providing resources for concerned parties. He foresees the damage to medicine if sensible steps are not taken. He knows that medical standards will be lowered, curricula will be adjusted to meet the woke agenda, and leave out other relevant material.
He concluded his opinion piece with this statement:
Published in HealthcareHealthcare is close to a tipping point, but I’m confident a majority of physicians oppose what’s happening to our profession. Many people fear speaking out, lest the social-justice mob destroy their careers, but the woke takeover of healthcare will do that anyway. That’s why I’m launching Do No Harm, a nonprofit that will help medical professionals and concerned Americans protect and promote the principles at the heart of healthcare: fairness, equal access, and the best, most personalized treatment for every patient.
Current and future physicians must tell the country that healthcare is being profoundly damaged by a radical and divisive ideology. The health and well-being of every American depend on it.
Bravo Dr Goldfarb!
Hip Hip Hooray!
Both Mrs Rodin and I come from medical families. It is beyond comprehension what is happening in medicine at the moment. I lay it principally in the corporatization of medicine which puts people who focus on image, finance, and ideology (rather than on direct patient care) in charge. If Anheiser-Busch and Target can go woke (given the preferences of their historic customer base) why not corporatized medicine?
I assume the hospitals are getting “ratings” of how woke they are, too, so everyone gets penalized if they don’t respond. It’s disgusting.
Yes, just when I was getting used to younger workers with tattoos (non-Navy veterans) and face furniture, along comes the transgender movement!
I’ve never gotten used to any of them. I’m proud to be an old fogey.
I am an old fogey too. “Getting used to” really means accepting that they may be competent and earnest in their job notwithstanding the tattoos and the face furniture. I still feel they would look so much better without it and wonder why they can’t see that. Mrs Rodin and I did watch the “Ink Masters” series and marvel at some of the artistry of tattoo artists. But I still think that using henna or something that doesn’t have to be lasered off would be preferable.
Ditto for me!
Thanks Susan – good to hear some good news.
The vocal minority has an outsized impact on public discourse, in my view. Most doctors just want to take care of sick people, and have no interest in such silliness. But those with an axe to grind are passionate and tireless advocates for their pet cause – in this case, trans sexual stuff.
Meanwhile, most doctors just keep on quietly taking care of sick people. While they allow others to control public discourse. Which didn’t matter until the left took over. Now, it matters. Perhaps we’ll change our approach in time.
Perhaps.
It’s hard to imagine how we change the approach without a major collapse. And when you think of how the next generation of physicians is being educated you even wonder what happens after the collapse?
Any thoughts on what would need to happen to encourage doctors to start speaking out?
Doctors are in school until their early 30’s, so the impact of the indoctrination of our educational system is powerful over all those years. Leftist craziness starts to seem normal after so many years.
And licensing boards are a problem as well. If a small group of academic bureaucrats can prevent you from earning a living, you tend to try to avoid challenging those people. Easier to just shut up and do your job.
Both of these problems have no easy fix.
Wouldn’t laws banning sex change procedures, surgical and hormonal, fix the problem?
Not every state, doctor or institution would agree to those laws.
No. It’s not a silver bullet. And it wouldn’t address the problem of the new racial discrimination that’s also mentioned in the YouTube video posted above.
Perhaps I am wrong, but from what I have read the State licensing boards have become thoroughly politicized and now threaten any doctor who dares to speak the truth on the Vax or Covid cures like ivermectin. I suspect the Obamacare Government apparatus has exerted their incredibly powerful corrupt influence over the both these boards and the Major Healthcare providers to force strict obedience and compliance to the Narrative on COVID treatment and the Vax and will soon do the same on the Transgender issue.
You are exactly correct.
Since all of this transgender stuff really started after the 2015 gay marriage Supreme Court decision (due to the need for the left to invent a new minority) it might be helpful for someone like Dr. Goldfarb to research how often gender dysphoria actually came up as an issue in the average pediatrician’s line of work prior to that, and then how much it increased after that. The question would then be, are we really to believe that there was an organic outbreak of gender dysphoria in children right at that time? Or is it a case of intentional popularization of transgenderism to recruit children to become permanent Democrats?
I suspect this stuff isn’t so much doctor-driven, as it is hospital- and corporate board-driven.
Still, the temptation of Frankensteinery is always with us.
I’m pretty sure you’re right. Why would a doctor compromise his relationship with patients?
God complex. Utter contempt for patients. Some combination thereof.
One of Hollywood’s favorite stock characters is the military guy who wants war because that’s what he’s for.
Mostly nonsense, though anyone with dangerous skills knows that drills and war games aren’t the real test. It is surely possible to wish for a scenario that would prove your mettle without actually wanting a there to be a scenario that would prove your mettle.
Surgeons are doctors, but perhaps the relationship to patients is somewhat different than that of other doctors. They objectify their patients – they’d suck if they didn’t. So perhaps there are outliers among surgeons who long to do something amazing or ground-breaking enough that their ethics get stretchy.
This is purest speculation. I await correction from military members or one of our varied docs.
I was in the Coast Guard in the 1980’s. A big reason for my choice of service was the Coast Guard has a peacetime mission, and I didn’t see the use in joining the other services during peacetime.
I would say that most people who join the military and gravitate to the tip of the spear, such as infantry or special forces want war so they can use those skills they’ve worked so hard to attain.
As they get older, if they make it a career, that lust subsides. And of course if they actually go to war, their attitude towards it changes drastically for most, sometimes for the better.