I’m sorry about the rambling headline, but I couldn’t find a short way to summarize just how bad this is.
It is fair to say that we can confidently add the AMA to the ABA and the ACLU as organizations that have decided to abandon their organizational missions to join the ideological assault on the United States, its values, and what our society once agreed upon as democratic and pluralistic priorities. “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” recently approved and released and reading like a high school Junior Marxist Club manifesto, officially injects far Left cant into medical practice, where it does not belong and never has. Doctors are professionals, and as such have a duty to serve the public good using their special skills and knowledge. Being a doctor of medicine, we have learned, imbues one with no special policy expertise, historical perspective of political acumen whatsoever. Consider, just as a sampling, former Senator Bill Frist, Howard Dean, Ben Carson, Rand Paul (most of the time , fortunately retired Virginia Governor Ralph Northam , and, of course, Dr. Fauci.
This monstrosity quickly attracted sharp criticism from Conor Friedersdorf, Alex Tabarrok, and substacker Matthew Yglesias among of the growing but nowhere near large enough group of progressive pundits and journalists who have become alienated by the progressive movement’s turn to nascent totalitarianism. Tabarrok pointed out the obvious that “politicizing medicine is dangerous.” Friedersdorf fingered the trust issue (professionals must be trusted), writing “It’s already hard enough to get my conservative grandfather to heed his doctors about how best to care for a bad back worn down from decades in construction.” Yglesias concentrated on the mission creep issue, writing in part,
The policy perspective the AMA is urging its members to take up is just weirdly distant from the organization’s own work [and] the quality of the policy analysis on display here is simply very poor.
The document is also hypocritical. Yglesias makes it clear that the AMA is mostly virtue-signaling, going full woke while simultaneously ignoring the profession’s own policies that make it more expensive and less convenient for all the oppressed people it purports to care about to get needed treatment. He writes,
…[D]octors are perennially in such short supply in the United States, they can afford to be extremely choosy about their assignments. You never have a down-on-his-luck doctor looking for work and realizing that there’s demand for medical care in poor neighborhoods or rural communities.
Even more subtly, because doctors are scarce, they can afford to treat their patients relatively poorly. Doctors’ offices normally keep business hours that are convenient for the doctor, rather than convenient for patients. And while you’ll lose your appointment if you’re running late, the doctor runs late all the time — it’s more cost-effective for him to run a schedule with zero padding, so you just need to wait if things go wrong. As a person who is persnickety about schedules and punctuality, this has frequently annoyed me, but I’ve always had very flexible jobs. For people with jobs that require them to be in specific places at specific times, scheduling hassles are a big deal. More medical abundance would mean not just lower costs, but potentially much greater convenience.
There are lots of ways to increase medical abundance, but unfortunately, the AMA is normally standing in the way — blocking increased scope of practice for nurses, making it hard for foreign-trained doctors to practice in the United States, and historically pushing to train too few doctors here at home.
All true, but I find it more ethically ominous that another influential organization is prescribing NewSpeak as a way to constrict freedom of thought and drive public perceptions into the rigid boxes the Left seeks to construct to keep them within their control. Remember, this is the American Medical Association issuing this Marxist jargon:
The field of equity, like all other scholarly domains, has developed specific norms that convey authenticity, precision and meaning. Just as the general structure of a business document varies from that of a physics document, so too is the case with an equity document. One example is the inclusion of a “Land and Labor Acknowledgement” like the one below. It is common that discussions in the field of equity begin with the recognition that our current state is built on the land and labor of others in ways that violated the
fundamental principles of equity. We acknowledge their ancestors were forced out by colonization, genocide, disease and war [and] the extraction of brilliance, energy and life for labor forced upon millions of people of African descent for more than 400 years…. Their land, labor, bodies and minds—and those from other historically marginalized people and groups over
the course of our nation’s history—have contributed to the wealth of this nation.The AMA mourn[s] the loss of life and liberty of millions of others who have
historically been oppressed, exploited, excluded, segregated, experimented upon and dehumanized in the U.S. over centuries, and acknowledges their historical trauma and the long-lasting impact this has had on them as an individual, their families and their communities…[T]he goal of health equity… cannot be achieved without explicit recognition and reconciliation of our
country’s twin, fundamental injustices of genocide and forced labor…
Then we get to the linguistic strait-jacket, Big Bother’s specialty, and increasingly the modus operandi of the Left. For example, we are reminded to
1. Avoid use of adjectives such as “vulnerable” and “high-risk.”
2. Avoid dehumanizing language. Use person-first language instead.
3. Remember that there are many types of subpopulations.
4. Avoid saying “target,” “tackle,” “combat” or other terms with violent connotation when referring to people, groups or communities.
5. Avoid unintentional blaming.
And we get a handy-dandy speech guide, telling doctors that instead of “marginalized communities,” they should refer to “groups that have been economically / socially marginalized.” “Disparities” is out, “inequities” is in. Naturally “ex-cons” and other terms that suggest that convicted criminals have some behavioral and legal blind-spots that led to their prison terms, “formerly incarcerated” is GoodSpeak. “Enslaved people” good, “slaves” bad.
Do enough doctors have the integrity to stand up to this professional shark-jumping exercise, or do medical professionals see it as just a necessary pandering exercise to keep the money flowing?
Ethics Alarms 
“Do enough doctors have the integrity to stand up to this professional shark-jumping exercise, or do medical professionals see it as just a necessary pandering exercise to keep the money flowing?”
My money is on the latter.
Given the way many medical professionals have toed the company line during the pandemic, even when they should have known better, I don’t think you’re in danger of losing your money. The last two years have been a really eye-opening education on how our industrialized medical system really works, and who calls the shots.
“because doctors are scarce, they can afford to treat their patients relatively poorly. Doctors’ offices normally keep business hours that are convenient for the doctor, rather than convenient for patients. And while you’ll lose your appointment if you’re running late, the doctor runs late all the time — it’s more cost-effective for him to run a schedule with zero padding, so you just need to wait if things go wrong.”
BINGO!
Storytime:
I had a dentist who consistently kept me waiting for 30-45mins so I began showing up 30-45 minutes late for my appointments. Well, that certainly got his attention and provoked a conversation where I explained myself. He was dumbfounded, irritated, and didn’t quite know how to respond. Our relationship never recovered.
I wrote a lengthy letter to my doctor complaining about this very issue. The response I got was that the practice decided to eliminate me as a patient. This was a direct violation of their own patient rights and responsibilities document. Now I tell everyone I know about this incident- when the issue arises.
What is the difference between God and a physician? God does not believe he is a physician.
You were eliminated as a patient because you complained that your overpaid vendor of services, your glorified mechanic, was wasting your time, and therefore even MORE of your money.
Doesn’t surprise me.
I have been fairly lucky because I have had doctors who generally seem to actually care about their patients. However, I have had to recently look for a new dentist because my current dentist decided to stop taking my insurance because apparently it wasn’t profitable enough for him. Fine, the insurance company is quite happy to point me to providers in the area who do take my insurance, although now I have to research them and see which ones are any good.
I don’t complain too much, because, as an attorney, I know my profession is also not well liked. We have only ourselves to blame for that. I myself don’t like a chunk of my profession. Too many lawyers use the license as a license to bully, abuse, and generally act like assholes. I don’t know who’s worse, the players personal injury attorneys who have egos bigger than Europe, or the civil rights attorneys who take every damn thing incredibly personally.
I’d like to think for the dislike of professionals is just a matter of jealousy by ordinary people who didn’t have what it took to go through the many years of school and training it takes to become a doctor or a lawyer, but I know it isn’t. Ordinary people see the Lexus with doctors plates double parked while the owner takes his time getting his bagel with lox. Ordinary people see the lawyer with the Rolex and the diamond pinky ring getting the drug dealer off on a technicality. They don’t like it.
Point of clarification: You said “I have been fairly lucky because I have had doctors who generally seem to actually care about their patients.”
Have you ever been seriously ill? Everyone I have ever met has the “Best” Doctor or Attorney, not sure how the bad one’s stay in business. My point is as someone who has been critically ill and dealt with chronic issues, even the best doctors are not that concerned or interested in your well-being. They are good at sympathetic/compassionate speak, actions cut into their profits.
As an Engineer, I have said this to many Doctors: Doc next time you drive over a Bridge I want you to ask yourself, do Engineers have the same ethics as Doctors? Cause if they cover their incompetent members like Doctors do you may not make it across that bridge before it collapses.
They get the point, not that is phases them.
Yes there are good Doctors, but they are far and few and less with each graduating class. Again the problem is Education. Being a Doctor use to be a calling, a vocation, now it is just another job.
Well, there is the story about the architect who was kept waiting by his doctor. When he let his displeasure be known, the doctor said “I’m a doctor. If I make a mistake someonw could die.” The architect snapped back “I’m an architect. If I make a mistake a whole lot of people could die. I win.” He then proceeded to walk out.
I like it!!
Anecdotal evidence that I view as near signature significance: my mother was twice told (by two different N. VA hospitals, that she was well enough to be discharged when she was suffering from C-Diff, a gut-killing bug that she caught…in a hospital. In the first instance, I saw how obviously sick she was in the lobby on the way out to the car, turned around, went to the desk, and threw a fit. They re-admitted her. (The bug killed her a few weeks later.)
My mom was clear November of 2013. February 2014, while in South Carolina, she began having problems. The doctors down there told her she had just a UTI. By April she had a tumor the size of a tennis ball. In May the surgeons in NJ did their best, but found they couldn’t remove it without killing her. It killed her that July, or rather the complications killed her by causing her to hemorrhage and lose too much blood. I have a really hard time grasping how the SC and GA doctors missed this, but I never pursued things farther, because 1. What killed her wasn’t the illness, but complications that might not have been avoidable anyway, 2. the illness appears to have been very aggressive, and earlier intervention might not have helped, 3. medical malpractice is a deliberately difficult hump to get over, and 4. the family needed to grieve and move on.
“I’d like to think for the dislike of professionals is just a matter of jealousy by ordinary people who didn’t have what it took to go through the many years of school and training it takes to become a doctor or a lawyer. ”
For lawyers at least, it’s that it’s the only profession that actively creates its own demand. The more lawyers in the world, the more demand for lawyers.
For doctors, it’s the god complex.
All said slightly tongue-in-cheek, obviously.
God, this would be nauseating even if I didn’t hate and distrust doctors and psychologists to begin with. The suffering my family and I endured because of these frauds is incalculable. Looking at this amps my hatred up to a record-setting high point.
I’ve experienced this abandonment of logic, reason, sanity and science up-close and personal, especially with the COVID lies that we’re being force-fed by these people, who we’re supposed to be able to trust with our lives.
I hope that every one of them that participated in this mass-murder, and it’s nothing less than that, is eventually dragged out of their homes and left to rot in gibbets or oubilettes.
Astrologers also have their own jargon, it doesn’t make their discipline any more valid. I question whether DEI experts are more accurately compared to them rather than to physics, business, or medicine.
I mean, do these DEI scholars actually produce equity? Take a village with no doctor, and put a doctor there, he starts seeing patients. I’ve never heard of some DEI expert being parachuted into some impoverished Mississippi township and bringing about harmony among all races, genders, and religions.
In fact, the only places that are well-staffed with DEI professionals are some of the most privileged environments on earth, and dedicated to perpetuating that privilege: university campuses, corporate governance, institutions like the ABA & AMA.
Because most environments are too practical to pay someone to spout DEI cant and effectiveness-hobbling bullshit.
That’s kind of my point. When a poor person needs a doctor, they go into debt, they pawn possessions, but they get themselves to a doctor. But poor, or even working-class people never seen to find the services of DEI professionals worth their while, despite supposedly being the object of the latter’s beneficence. That suggests the actual product of DEI experts is not equity, but status.
“Woke” nonsense is like Omicron, infecting everything it touches.
Physicians, heal thyselves. Oops, I’m just sure that’s some kind of pronoun malfunction…
When doctors start providing equal services to all and billing the patients using a sliding scale based on the patient’s ability to pay and not on what they consider “reasonable and customary”, then they can start talking about equity.
Here’s some AMA info from a few years ago.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/campbells-scoop/80583
Don’t Believe AMA’s Hype, Membership Still Declining
Do you have current information? I’d be interested in seeing whether membership has trended up or down.
I worked for a large medical system for years. I agree wholeheartedly with all of these comments and can tell you many tales that would reinforce your opinions. The bottom line for me has become, I will be on my death bed before I go to a doctor, and even then I will fight going. The only exception to this is if I were in a car crash and/or broke my leg hiking, something like that, the type of medical care that requires emergency care more than doctoring. I will not take any drugs they prescribe. I will not undergo any of their recommended tests (such as a mammogram, don’t get me started on the false positive of that test!) I will eat well, exercise and do all of the things that need to be done to be healthy. And, if I don’t feel well, I rest, do all the things nana would have done years ago. I haven’t needed to see a doctor for years. I am in the best shape of my life and people routinely peg me as 10 to 20 years younger than I am (I’m close to 60 now). I deeply believe that our doctors are killing us. The despicable way most of the doctors behaved during the pandemic only reinforced my opinion.