The Patriot Post® · AMA's Leftist Diversicrats

The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest medical lobbyist group that represents some 270,000 medical professionals, not long ago issued what can only be described as a woke screed that aims to police doctors’ language. Dubbed the “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” the 54-page document is a classic example of critical race theory at play. Indeed, the leftist document is so Orwellian that even the likes of The Washington Post found it disconcerting.

In an opinion column titled, “Paging Dr. Orwell. The American Medical Association takes on the politics of language.” Washington Post columnist Matt Bai pointedly observes, “The country’s most powerful medical associations have decided that the ‘dominant narratives’ of inequality in health care must be ‘named, disrupted and corrected,’ according to an introduction that reads like it came from Mao’s ‘Little Red Book.’”

And the Post wasn’t the only Leftmedia outlet to find the AMA’s language guide problematic. The Atlantic also weighed in with a story titled, “The Medical Establishment Embraces Leftist Language.” The article diagnoses the issue:

The document is a classic example of how administrative bureaucracies of all sorts are thinking about social justice in 2021. Substantive disparities exist in health-care outcomes in the United States — across a variety of demographic and socioeconomic lines — alongside ongoing debates about their causes and how best to eliminate them. But in response, two leading medical organizations are proposing a lot of language policing that presumes far-left answers to a host of thorny questions.

The AMA’s descent into wokeness will produce worse healthcare outcomes for Americans rather than better — should medical professional buy into the equity snake oil they’re selling. The AMA is seeking to make real the hypothetical scenario of being assigned a surgeon based upon the Left’s principles of equity and diversity dynamics rather than competency of the surgeon.

The AMA’s screed admits as much as it attacks individualism and meritocracy as “unjust.” The document states:

Individualism is a philosophy and group of ideas, expressed in symbols, practices, and stories that supports a belief that self-sufficient individuals are rational beings that freely make consumer-like choices, independent of political influences, living conditions or historical context. Among these ideas is the concept of meritocracy, a social system in which advancement in society is based on an individual’s capabilities and merits rather than on the basis of family, wealth or social background. … This narrative acknowledges that class inequities may be unfortunate, but falls short of declaring them unjust, thus obscuring political, structural and social determinants of health inequities. Diseases become the main target rather than the social and economic conditions that produce health inequities. This focus ignores the role of political struggle in the advances that have been made over time.

Hello, Marxism.

The focus of the document is apparently being a guide to language, so there are ample examples of woke-speak throughout. Certain common everyday words, terms, and phrases that medical professionals regularly use to communicate truthfully to their patients are declared “racist.” It would be laughable if this wasn’t coming from the AMA.

The great irony is that the AMA, having fully bowed to CRT, is the one now peddling false and dangerous narratives that, if accepted by a significant number of doctors and medical professionals, will have dire impacts upon Americans’ health.