The AMA Racial Equity Plan is a Nightmare for Healthcare

 

The American Medical Association has finally gone fully woke.  After firing prominent members after a removed podcast (replaced by an apology), they’ve decided to state their goals for equity.

Stephanie Stevens, of Medscape, summarizes everything nicely:

Moving forward from that [infamous podcast], the new strategic plan announces that the AMA will pursue five strategic approaches:

  1. Embed racial and social justice throughout the AMA enterprise culture, systems, policies, and practices
  2. Build alliances and share power with historically marginalized and minoritized physicians and other stakeholders
  3. Push upstream to address all determinants of health and the root causes of inequities
  4. Ensure equitable structures and opportunities in innovation
  5. Foster pathways for truth, racial healing, reconciliation, and transformation for the AMA’s past

If this doesn’t give people chills, I don’t know what would.

The AMA advises a number of organizations and their journal known as JAMA is one of the premier journals used as a reputable source by all medical facilities in the US, including teaching hospitals and universities.  From the very beginning of their medical careers, students are taught to revere the AMA and the advice that they propose regarding medical conditions and policies in the US.

Since they’ve moved even further away from medicine and into politics (beginning with Obamacare and the idea of universal healthcare as a right), it is harder and harder to see them as a purely medical authority, rather than a political body used to reinforce the woke status-quo of our current regime.  Unfortunately, our students are not taught to question any of these journals as a part of their so-called “critical thinking” coursework; they are merely taught to parrot them better and one-up them as not being revolutionary enough.

I suppose the important thing is that everyone gets a voice in care.

That’s good.

I certainly hope that they’re planning on being inclusive of the doctor-hating-severely-obese-illegal-drug-using doctors.  Because we need to fully represent diversity and give everyone a voice, right?

Right.

Let’s just make sure that the proportions are all correct:

Women need to make up 35.1% of their board, and men need to be at most 64%.  Most importantly, we need 0.9% of “Unknown” gender to be represented.  I’m not sure how we’ll manage that, but maybe we can have one of these unknown people spend only part of the meeting time there…and we can get down to that 0.9% that would be equitable.

Most of the medical practitioners are MDs (90.6% – there’s that decimal again!), with DO’s coming in at 9.1%.  Again, some people who claim to practice do not know their degree…and we’ll have to represent them too at 0.3%.

The median and average age is 51 years old, so we’ll have to make sure there’s enough of them represented, but at the same time, we can’t just go with averages.  We’re talking about justice here and averages simply won’t do.

We’ll need to make sure that the addicts among the doctors are represented: there’s about 10-15% (depending on sources) that are addicts at some point during their careers.  We’ll need to make sure we have appropriate accommodations so that they can give their voices regarding health care policy.

There’s also 42% of all doctors that are burned out.  We need to make sure that they have a voice too.

—–

No wonder no one wants to break it all down into numbers.  I’m already exhausted just looking at the different variables.  I don’t know how we’re supposed to find doctors of the right age, gender expression, burnout score, ethnicity (or race, possibly both), degrees, and even weight!

But it’s important that we right the wrongs of the past by ensuring that the future be categorized correctly by visible or descriptive features and allowing those to dominate medical policy.

You know.

For equity’s sake.

Sources:

https://www.fsmb.org/physician-census/

https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2020-lifestyle-burnout-6012460

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/medical-professionals/substance-abuse-among-doctors-key-statistics

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  1. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Juliana (View Comment):

    Too few minorities in this country are pursuing careers in medicine, causing a serious lack of diversity among general practitioners and specialty doctors, according to a new report.

    For the study, researchers found that in 2012:

    • Blacks made up less than 4 percent of practicing physicians, 6 percent of trainees in graduate medical education and 7 percent of medical school graduates. The black population was 15 percent black in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Who writes this stuff?  Are there other kinds of doctors than general practitioners  and specialty doctors?  If only 15% of the black population is black, what are the other 85%?

    • #31
  2. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Juliana (View Comment):

    Too few minorities in this country are pursuing careers in medicine, causing a serious lack of diversity among general practitioners and specialty doctors, according to a new report.

    For the study, researchers found that in 2012:

    • Blacks made up less than 4 percent of practicing physicians, 6 percent of trainees in graduate medical education and 7 percent of medical school graduates. The black population was 15 percent black in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Who writes this stuff? Are there other kinds of doctors than general practitioners and specialty doctors? If only 15% of the black population is black, what are the other 85%?

    Well, they’re not doctors, that’s for sure.

    • #32
  3. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Well, let’s see…  How many black males graduate from high school these days?  Then, how many black males graduate from college these days?  How many black males are in prison for murder these days?  There’s your answer.  

    The Left destroyed the black family in the 1960s.  Lay the blame on them.

    • #33
  4. Joseph Eagar Member
    Joseph Eagar
    @JosephEagar

    I remember at the beginning of the pandemic all the black people in my community disappeared for about a month and then came back.  No one was able to ask any questions.  I don’t know what happened, or what actions local health officials may or may not have taken.  But I do know that if I and others had tried to organize any kind of political response the black people in our community might not have come back for three months, or four.  If you look at the studies that explain why COVID did not spike in communities with racial justice protests, there is a very simple explanation: black people in those neighborhoods were literally too scared to leave their homes, so the total number of people interacting on a daily basis stayed roughly the same.  Literally, the only reason the protests didn’t kill tens of thousands of black people from COVID is because they were too scared to go out at all.

    That did not happen in my community; black people came back and we all got on with our lives.  We were lucky.

    Let’s put aside all the normal American political baggage around race for a minute.  When an ethnicity simply disappears in your community it’s actually pretty scary.  Not being able to even ask why, because it might lead to them disappearing for longer–or being driven out–because it might spark an anarchist riot that the national media would then label “Black Lives Matter” is just completely unacceptable.

    Things worked out in our case, we were lucky.  But I fully expect that in the coming years a lot of COVID horror stories are going to come out, the worst of which will be black people trapped in their homes in fear of anarchist riots that, they are told by very nice, smiling, and deeply evil people, were for their own benefit.

    • #34
  5. TheRightNurse Member
    TheRightNurse
    @TheRightNurse

    Joseph Eagar (View Comment):

    Let’s put aside all the normal American political baggage around race for a minute.  When an ethnicity simply disappears in your community it’s actually pretty scary.  Not being able to even ask why, because it might lead to them disappearing for longer–or being driven out–because it might spark an anarchist riot that the national media would then label “Black Lives Matter” is just completely unacceptable.

    Things worked out in our case, we were lucky.  But I fully expect that in the coming years a lot of COVID horror stories are going to come out, the worst of which will be black people trapped in their homes in fear of anarchist riots that, they are told by very nice, smiling, and deeply evil people, were for their own benefit.

    Whoa.

    Wait up.

    In your case, people didn’t disappear?

    So…yay?

    For the rest of us, we were told that the people who did disappear was because of racism, inequality, etc.  It had less to do with actual viral contraction and everything to do with wealth, class, and disparities,

    • #35
  6. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The AMA has been leftists for as long as I can remember. My father told me that when I was not yet an adult.

    They just keep getting worse as they purge anyone not on board.

    The AMA was originally racist. Antiracism is taking it back to its roots:

    When the Civil War ended with a Northern victory, the formerly enslaved people who had been treated like cattle—“freedmen,” as they were called at the time—came knocking on the door of American civil institutions requesting admission as equals, as fellow citizens. This essay narrates what transpired when an integrated group of Americans of African and European descent from Howard University, a newly founded institution for freedmen, and the associated Freedman’s Hospital (founded during the Civil War), knocked on the door of the American Medical Association (AMA)—and were repeatedly rejected.

    Back to its roots here, too: for many years it purged practitioners it disagreed with. Harris Coulter’s Divided Legacy, Volume II: Science and Ethics in American Medicine covers the AMA’s founding.

    Through a careful review of the history of 19th-century American medicine, the author argues that the struggle between the two systens of thought was political rather than scientific in focus, a matter not of careful investigation of the merits of each system but a product of a historically contingent chain of events, which in a different time or place might have taken a different turn. Most important, the reader is provided with information rarely mentioned in conventional recitations of the history of 19th-century medicine, which tend to demonize rather than pay careful attention to the many alternative forms of medicine practiced by medical doctors of the era. In the case of homeopathy, which at one point was practiced in some form or another by 20% of American MDs, such omission amounts to scholarly incompetence. Minimally, therefore, this version of the the history of the era ought to be considered less biased than most.
    This is essential reading (together with the first volume of the series) for anyone interested in the true origins of western medicine from a perspective which doesn’t antecedently glorify the subject matter. The author is strongly biased toward homeopathy, but despite this – or perhaps because of it – the truth is allowed to emerge about the political context in which conventional medicine established itself as uniquely valid in the eye of western thought. This is a serious piece of scholarship, with copious references provided for the researcher interested in pursuing this further.

    David Nortman

    The AMA used its code of “ethics” to eliminate economic competitors until the 1980s.

    The AMA used its political influence to “contain and eliminate” the practice of chiropractic (the phrase came from an internal AMA document detailing its plans.) Its local affiliates would strip physicians of their hospital privileges for any professional cooperation with “unscientific” practitioners.

    In California, it took a ballot initiative to establish chiropractic licensure.

    • #36
  7. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    In addition to the AMA, you have some medical schools doing the Woke Media – University of Pittsburgh Medial school has a whole new “woke medicine” push. 

    • #37
  8. The Scarecrow Thatcher
    The Scarecrow
    @TheScarecrow

    Juliana (View Comment):

    For the study, researchers found that in 2012:

    • Blacks made up less than 4 percent of practicing physicians, 6 percent of trainees in graduate medical education and 7 percent of medical school graduates. The black population was 15 percent black in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    So if the AMA is determined to do whatever it takes to get these numbers up to 15% – which I assume is severely and immediately lower all the standards – then that means that afterward any rational person would be very suspicious of any black doctor they see, knowing that the chances are 1 in 2 that he couldn’t make it into medical school.  Way to go, AMA!

    • #38
  9. The Scarecrow Thatcher
    The Scarecrow
    @TheScarecrow

    I think the AMA should be required to describe all the things they have been doing and advocating up til now that are so racist. All the black people they have denied admittance. In this day and age.

    Let’s come clean, AMA, I’m really curious about exactly what problem are we trying to solve here.

    • #39
  10. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Given the disparity in lifespan and incidence of health problems related to income and given the statistically higher incidence of low income among minorities, shouldn’t hospitals be achieving more equal outcomes by race by letting some white people die?  Shouldn’t  our more woke legislatures establish an affirmative defence in medical malpractice cases such that withholding treatment for equitable reasons bars recovery for negligent care?  Or perhaps a white privilege tax until such disparities are eliminated.

     

    • #40
  11. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    So what exactly was in this notorious podcast that was so hurtful?

    I think this is what’s being referred to.  This is the extent of his WrongSpeak as far as I know.

    “Structural racism is an unfortunate term,” Dr. Edward Livingston, another editor at JAMA, said in the podcast, according to the New York Times. “Personally, I think taking racism out of the conversation will help. Many people like myself are offended by the implication that we are somehow racist.”

    • #41
  12. Tedley Member
    Tedley
    @Tedley

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    Given the disparity in lifespan and incidence of health problems related to income and given the statistically higher incidence of low income among minorities, shouldn’t hospitals be achieving more equal outcomes by race by letting some white people die? Shouldn’t our more woke legislatures establish an affirmative defence in medical malpractice cases such that withholding treatment for equitable reasons bars recovery for negligent care? Or perhaps a white privilege tax until such disparities are eliminated.

    Or maybe it’s time for the Obamacare “death panels” to have jurisdiction everywhere.  At the rate things are proceeding, Sarah Palin may get to see them before she passes from this world. 

    • #42
  13. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    . . .shouldn’t hospitals be achieving more equal outcomes by race by letting some white people die?

    OK, boomer, ask and ye shall receive:

    . . .[A]n 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.’”

    Some in medicine would like to see such race-conscious bias mandated on an institutional level, particularly in regards to Covid-19, which has killed black, Hispanic, and Native American people at three times the rate as whites. These discrepancies are likely due to an array of factors, including income, housing, work, language, pre-existing conditions, access to health care, and, yes, possibly some degree of racism. 

    [. . .]

    In April, Vermont’s Republican Governor Phill Scott announced that any resident over age 16 who identified as a black, indigenous, or a person of color would be eligible for the vaccine before white people, a decision that, according to some legal scholars, likely violated federal law. The CDC itself considered recommending that states prioritize essential workers over the elderly despite the fact that the number one risk factor for dying from Covid is age. The idea had plenty of supporters. Harold Schmidt, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told the New York Times, “Older populations are whiter. Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer.

    They’re institutionalizing and systematizing it:

    In May, the Boston Review published an editorial by physicians Bram Wispelwey and Michelle Morse entitled “An Antiracist Agenda for Medicine.” In it, the doctors argue that in order to address discrepancies in health-care access and outcomes, hospitals should commit to “preferentially admitting patients historically denied access to certain forms of medical care.” That is, they should admit people to health services based on their skin color. 

    This idea is not coming from people with no power.

    Michelle Morse is a physician at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She was recently appointed to be the first Chief Medical Officer of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

    Morse writes:

    Offering preferential care based on race or ethnicity may elicit legal challenges from our system of colorblind law. But given the ample current evidence that our health, judicial, and other systems already unfairly preference people who are white, we believe—following the ethical framework of Zack and others—that our approach is corrective and therefore mandated. We encourage other institutions to proceed confidently on behalf of equity and racial justice, with backing provided by recent White House executive orders.

     

    • #43
  14. DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) Coolidge
    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!)
    @DonG

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Juliana (View Comment):

    Too few minorities in this country are pursuing careers in medicine, causing a serious lack of diversity among general practitioners and specialty doctors, according to a new report.

    For the study, researchers found that in 2012:

    • Blacks made up less than 4 percent of practicing physicians, 6 percent of trainees in graduate medical education and 7 percent of medical school graduates. The black population was 15 percent black in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Who writes this stuff? Are there other kinds of doctors than general practitioners and specialty doctors? If only 15% of the black population is black, what are the other 85%?

    In low-income areas, up to 40% of doctors are foreign-born.   That is a whole different demographic.

    • #44
  15. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    So what exactly was in this notorious podcast that was so hurtful?

    I think this is what’s being referred to. This is the extent of his WrongSpeak as far as I know.

    “Structural racism is an unfortunate term,” Dr. Edward Livingston, another editor at JAMA, said in the podcast, according to the New York Times. “Personally, I think taking racism out of the conversation will help. Many people like myself are offended by the implication that we are somehow racist.”

    Thanks.

    Amazing.

    • #45
  16. TheRightNurse Member
    TheRightNurse
    @TheRightNurse

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Morse writes:

    Offering preferential care based on race or ethnicity may elicit legal challenges from our system of colorblind law. But given the ample current evidence that our health, judicial, and other systems already unfairly preference people who are white, we believe—following the ethical framework of Zack and others—that our approach is corrective and therefore mandated. We encourage other institutions to proceed confidently on behalf of equity and racial justice, with backing provided by recent White House executive orders.

    This was, most specifically, what I was indicating would happen if we granted the wishes of BLM and other organizations who indicate specific racial preference in treatment and level of care.

    • #46
  17. Roderic Coolidge
    Roderic
    @rhfabian

    Less that 20% of American doctors are members of the AMA.  

    • #47
  18. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Juliana (View Comment):

    The fact that Black males comprised only 3.1% of medical school enrollment for the 1978-79 school year according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) probably isn’t that alarming. After all, it was 1978 – Jimmy Carter was President. Dallas and Grease had just been released, and I was only seven. The shocking and demoralizing realization though is that the comparable stat for the 2019-20 year is actually lower at 2.9% (or nearly unchanged at 3.4% for the “alone or in combination statistic” that includes those identifying with another race as well).

    How is the AMA going to change this?

    Race-based quotas for admission into medical schools, I suppose.

    • #48
  19. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Juliana (View Comment):

    The fact that Black males comprised only 3.1% of medical school enrollment for the 1978-79 school year according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) probably isn’t that alarming. After all, it was 1978 – Jimmy Carter was President. Dallas and Grease had just been released, and I was only seven. The shocking and demoralizing realization though is that the comparable stat for the 2019-20 year is actually lower at 2.9% (or nearly unchanged at 3.4% for the “alone or in combination statistic” that includes those identifying with another race as well).

    How is the AMA going to change this?

    Race-based quotas for admission into medical schools, I suppose.

    And race-based scoring on their board exams.

    • #49
  20. JoshuaFinch Coolidge
    JoshuaFinch
    @JoshuaFinch

    AMA guidelines for time allotted per patient visit:

    Checked by a licensed physician:

    black women — 30 minutes

    black men – 25 minutes

    Latino women – 20 minutes

    Latino men – 15 minutes

    Checked by a nurse practitioner:

    Asian women – 20 minutes

    Asian men – 15 minutes

    white women – 10 minutes

    white men – 5 minutes

    Note: gay people get 5 minutes added to their visit time; transgenders merit an extra 10 minutes

    • #50
  21. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    JoshuaFinch (View Comment):

    AMA guidelines for time allotted per patient visit:

    Checked by a licensed physician:

    black women — 30 minutes

    black men – 25 minutes

    Latino women – 20 minutes

    Latino men – 15 minutes

    Checked by a nurse practitioner:

    Asian women – 20 minutes

    Asian men – 15 minutes

    white women – 10 minutes

    white men – 5 minutes

    Note: gay people get 5 minutes added to their visit time; transgenders merit an extra 10 minutes

    JoshuaFinch (View Comment):

    AMA guidelines for time allotted per patient visit:

    Checked by a licensed physician:

    black women — 30 minutes

    black men – 25 minutes

    Latino women – 20 minutes

    Latino men – 15 minutes

    Checked by a nurse practitioner:

    Asian women – 20 minutes

    Asian men – 15 minutes

    white women – 10 minutes

    white men – 5 minutes

    Note: gay people get 5 minutes added to their visit time; transgenders merit an extra 10 minutes

    This is strange, counter-productive and legally hazardous to put in writing, and unethical.  Just out of curiosity, where did you get this?

    • #51
  22. JoshuaFinch Coolidge
    JoshuaFinch
    @JoshuaFinch

    Flicker (View Comment):

    JoshuaFinch (View Comment):

    AMA guidelines for time allotted per patient visit:

    Checked by a licensed physician:

    black women — 30 minutes

    black men – 25 minutes

    Latino women – 20 minutes

    Latino men – 15 minutes

    Checked by a nurse practitioner:

    Asian women – 20 minutes

    Asian men – 15 minutes

    white women – 10 minutes

    white men – 5 minutes

    Note: gay people get 5 minutes added to their visit time; transgenders merit an extra 10 minutes

    JoshuaFinch (View Comment):

    AMA guidelines for time allotted per patient visit:

    Checked by a licensed physician:

    black women — 30 minutes

    black men – 25 minutes

    Latino women – 20 minutes

    Latino men – 15 minutes

    Checked by a nurse practitioner:

    Asian women – 20 minutes

    Asian men – 15 minutes

    white women – 10 minutes

    white men – 5 minutes

    Note: gay people get 5 minutes added to their visit time; transgenders merit an extra 10 minutes

    This is strange, counter-productive and legally hazardous to put in writing, and unethical. Just out of curiosity, where did you get this?

    From a woke revelation that I recently experienced.

    • #52
  23. TheRightNurse Member
    TheRightNurse
    @TheRightNurse

    Roderic (View Comment):

    Less that 20% of American doctors are members of the AMA.

    And yet, they continue to be the advisors of record when the CDC or hospital administrators come a-knockin’.

    • #53
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