TUCSON, Ariz., Sept. 05, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Critical Race Theory (CRT), once just a topic of academic discussions, is “now infecting medicine—in medical school, in clinical practice, and in public health,” writes Marilyn Singleton, M.D., J.D., in the fall issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
To Dr. Singleton, a Black physician, it appears that after years of progress in civil rights, “we are going backwards.” This ideology “promotes racial division,” she notes.
“In the purported pursuit of ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ (DEI), schools are segregating children by race for certain activities and lessons. In higher education, students have separate eating areas, dorms, and graduations. What happened to the principle of Brown v. Board of Education that separate is inherently unequal? What happened to seeing people as individual human beings, each with our own attributes, personalities, good sides, and bad sides?”
Certainly, there are useful skin-color-based studies such as whether skin color affects the reading on pulse oximeters, she writes. “However, what we see mainly publicized by academicians and medical associations are poorly researched articles that conclude that Black and brown patients are better off by having a doctor who, as the jargon goes, ‘looks like them.’”
A medical student organization, White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL), which has more than 70 chapters, asserts that medical professionals must unlearn “the false equivalency between weight and health,” and “fat people must have access to affirming healthcare free of stigma and guilt.”
“Of course, we should never shame any of our patients,” Dr. Singleton writes, but not because being “anti-fat is being anti-Black.” Obesity is a serious health risk.
Concern for the health of Blacks and other minorities is often a cloak for a radical leftist political agenda, Dr. Singleton explains.
“Fortunately, most physicians adhere to old-school DEI—dignity, excellence, and integrity—in providing great medical care to our patients,” she concludes.
The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943.
Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail.com
