Maybe it’s partly just chance, but, anecdotally, an astounding proportion of non-immigrant black women I’m encountering lately, or reading about, or hearing about, locally (I live in a large city but not one of the largest few, in a slightly right-of-center state, near a massive and sprawling university medical system and another huge network) are younger doctors, residents, or med students. It’s truly startling, even if not a statistically representative sample of a larger phenomenon. Does anyone doubt that larger phenomenon is occurring, whatever the precise statistics? (given what Heather MacDonald and others in City Journal have reported). We’re talking about people drawn from slightly over half of a group that makes up approximately 13% of the US population and a field which is still “the profession of professions” in terms of earning potential and social status. How can it be that suddenly a vastly higher proportion of black women are entering and graduating from medical schools, including programs so many highly-qualified applicants if all backgrounds would almost DIE (pun intended) to get into? Have we seen a similarly sharp and startling rise among this cohort in terms of MCAT scores or other standardized, objective measures of merit?
Personally, my feelings are mixed. As Glenn always argues so eloquently, these are each different people, individual human beings. Some are brilliant. Some are relatively mediocre. Some are not only highly-competent but also have warm, engaging personalities. Some have likely overcome a lot through hard work, perseverance and talent. Others might be the quite average but cosseted children of lawyers who themselves benefitted enormously from racial preferences in admissions and hiring a generation ago. Some are fantastic young doctors who will benefit patients of all backgrounds and identities for many years, and who truly may have been passed over or felt sure they had little chance of admission into relatively recently. Some might be both incompetent and personally nasty. But I can imagine the sense of joy and possibility and reward for genuine achievement virtually all surely felt upon reaching this profession. It’s churlish not to feel at least some secondhand joy at that. But I also think of an old friend, a white woman who was eminently bright, competent, capable and extremely determined and who was motivated to attend med school for all the right reasons. But she had little shot because of one really bad college semester in particular during which her father who hadn’t much been in the picture growing up completely disappeared. She was treated like damaged goods. It took several years of her humbling herself as a lab assistant for a cancer researcher and countless hours of selfish, sincerely committed volunteer work before finally, after many years and more rejections, a relatively marginal program finally gave her that shot. Predictably, she absolutely thrived and became every bit the smart, competent, truly caring doctor one hopes for. The impression I’m now beginning to get is that pretty much any halfway bright, halfway motivated black woman who wants to go to med school gets a spot, immediately, almost no questions asked. Whatever objective metrics used in admissions aren’t in “her” favor are discounted or systemically delegitmized, or eliminated entirely. Once admitted, any measures of competence, knowledge, or achievement in which “she” doesn’t excel are suddenly invalid, if not presumed to be racially discriminatory at “her” expense. Meanwhile, MacDonald and others report larger proportions of the very highest-qualified Asian and white (especially male) candidates for med school are opting for other fields entirely, ones in which DEI/DIE isn’t yet such a controlling factor re: who has a legitimate chance of seeing their objective merit and performance recognized. Part of me likes seeing so many youngish black women ascend to such a challenging, rewarding, high-status profession. Part of the assumption underlying the rationale for their privileged criteria for admission and hiring seems to be that there is a unique and profound public health crisis impacting black Americans and that the cause of this is entirely or almost entirely various kinds of supposed implicit bias, residual individual racism, and of course all of the ubiquitous if mostly invisible forms of systemic, structural, and institutional racism. Black patients need black doctors, etc. Black doctors all somehow have an all-encompassing wisdom and superior judgment based on standpoint in society and lived experience. How are health outcomes, I wonder, for working class white or Latino men? Are oppressive systems deleteriously impacting their health - or are they making bad choices for which they are chiefly responsible? Maybe their own toxic masculinity is to blame. Maybe more doctors who are black women will ameliorate these issues, too. Or maybe their lives don’t really matter so much. There is absolutely an element of the fetishization of skin color and race - that black patients are holy victims and any little black girl who feels like being a doctor should automatically be first in line. I think about all of the other highly-promising aspiring doctors, prospective med students of other backgrounds who are brilliant, kind, determined, who overcome much themselves, and whose dreams are dashed. Inevitably, I also think of the cumulative bigger-picture consequences in terms of the quality of medical care. Maybe in some ways it will actually be improved. But, unless every previous objective metric of knowledge, excellence, and skill was just invalid, some irrelevant vestige of bias, surely scraping most of those measures of ability in order to achieve what’s now considered an equitable result will have a very real world impact on the decree of expertise and quality of care. Maybe the farcical end point will be when all black women are automatically conferred the title, MD, at birth, and all doctors must be black women in order to be licensed and a practice. There are situations in which being a solid doctor with an empathetic personality is good enough. There are other situations in which differences in knowledge and skill will determine whether patients live or die. The other ineluctable issue is what the broader public will think - how they will see the profession and how they will perceive doctors of these identities which are now so obviously highly-privileged in admissions and hiring for some of the most challenging, highest-status, most remunerated professions there are. No one will be able to say a public word. But what will they think and what will they share in their most private conversations?
The practice of medicine requires several things: Reasonable intelligence, the ability to relate to people in an empathetic way, the ability to think critically and react and respond to crisis situations without panicking. I would imagine most people would want a competent, caring doctor who will do their best for their patients. I could see a situation where some would prefer doctors who "looked" like them and I can certainly understand women preferring women doctors as their gynecologists. However, for all the talk of diversity, who really cares what one's doctor looks like as long as they are competent? And let's be real, in today's medical climate, you may have numerous doctors involved in your care at different times, ER doctors, Family Doctors, Urgent Care, specialists, etc. Additionally, there may be cultural ideas about what careers are the most preferable. Maybe more Asians prefer medicine than Whites, Blacks or Latinos. You can't force people into careers they don't really want, people will self-select the careers they prefer. On the other hand, let's look at ways to improve school systems for all kids, especially the socio-economically deprived so we can give them a level playing field from the bottom up, not favoritism at the top.
I know this story was even covered in the NYT and is getting a fair amount of play nationally, re: the empty-headed audacity of the complaining students and the craven “our wealthy customers are always right” cave by the administration. How does anyone take NYU seriously anymore when it comes to the hard sciences? How does anyone take seriously NYU grads who apply for medical school? (Very unfair to the professors still trying to teach with rigor and demand serious effort from their students; very unfair to the truly accomplished STEM grads from NYU whose reputations may be affected by this stunt). But this story really says it all. How much does NYU cost? And what does a graduate really get other than four years in lower Manhattan and all the non-academic amenities such schools now offer their mostly wealthy customers? Would-be med students at a supposedly top school, now demanding organic chemistry be dumbed down enough so that pretty much anyone there who wants to be a doctor (for what - money and status?) can get in without having to show they have the knowledge, work ethic, and intellectual chops to even get through a core prerequisite. That pretty much says it all. What does the world’s phoniest, least impressive “public intellectual”, Ibram X, says we should use as our key criterion: the students’ “desire to learn”?! Not, of course a desire to learn manifested in rigorous study - or even going to class, watching the videos the professor made and posted at his own expense, or making a serious effort to understand what in exam questions was even being asked. No, just the assertion that they want to learn (and, let me guess, never ending accusations that any failure on their part is a sign of some sort of racism, either personal or institutional, interfering with that desire to learn). Look, that surgeon really “desired” to perform the transplant competently, but personal and systemic biases interfered in their ability to actually do so. That can only mean we must double and redouble “antiracist” racial discrimination against the most demonstrably knowledgeable and competent potential doctors until enough demonstrably less knowledgeable and competent feel that their desire to learn and desire to ascend to the top of some of the most challenging professions most consequential to public health and safety are duly honored and respected.
Maybe it’s partly just chance, but, anecdotally, an astounding proportion of non-immigrant black women I’m encountering lately, or reading about, or hearing about, locally (I live in a large city but not one of the largest few, in a slightly right-of-center state, near a massive and sprawling university medical system and another huge network) are younger doctors, residents, or med students. It’s truly startling, even if not a statistically representative sample of a larger phenomenon. Does anyone doubt that larger phenomenon is occurring, whatever the precise statistics? (given what Heather MacDonald and others in City Journal have reported). We’re talking about people drawn from slightly over half of a group that makes up approximately 13% of the US population and a field which is still “the profession of professions” in terms of earning potential and social status. How can it be that suddenly a vastly higher proportion of black women are entering and graduating from medical schools, including programs so many highly-qualified applicants if all backgrounds would almost DIE (pun intended) to get into? Have we seen a similarly sharp and startling rise among this cohort in terms of MCAT scores or other standardized, objective measures of merit?
Personally, my feelings are mixed. As Glenn always argues so eloquently, these are each different people, individual human beings. Some are brilliant. Some are relatively mediocre. Some are not only highly-competent but also have warm, engaging personalities. Some have likely overcome a lot through hard work, perseverance and talent. Others might be the quite average but cosseted children of lawyers who themselves benefitted enormously from racial preferences in admissions and hiring a generation ago. Some are fantastic young doctors who will benefit patients of all backgrounds and identities for many years, and who truly may have been passed over or felt sure they had little chance of admission into relatively recently. Some might be both incompetent and personally nasty. But I can imagine the sense of joy and possibility and reward for genuine achievement virtually all surely felt upon reaching this profession. It’s churlish not to feel at least some secondhand joy at that. But I also think of an old friend, a white woman who was eminently bright, competent, capable and extremely determined and who was motivated to attend med school for all the right reasons. But she had little shot because of one really bad college semester in particular during which her father who hadn’t much been in the picture growing up completely disappeared. She was treated like damaged goods. It took several years of her humbling herself as a lab assistant for a cancer researcher and countless hours of selfish, sincerely committed volunteer work before finally, after many years and more rejections, a relatively marginal program finally gave her that shot. Predictably, she absolutely thrived and became every bit the smart, competent, truly caring doctor one hopes for. The impression I’m now beginning to get is that pretty much any halfway bright, halfway motivated black woman who wants to go to med school gets a spot, immediately, almost no questions asked. Whatever objective metrics used in admissions aren’t in “her” favor are discounted or systemically delegitmized, or eliminated entirely. Once admitted, any measures of competence, knowledge, or achievement in which “she” doesn’t excel are suddenly invalid, if not presumed to be racially discriminatory at “her” expense. Meanwhile, MacDonald and others report larger proportions of the very highest-qualified Asian and white (especially male) candidates for med school are opting for other fields entirely, ones in which DEI/DIE isn’t yet such a controlling factor re: who has a legitimate chance of seeing their objective merit and performance recognized. Part of me likes seeing so many youngish black women ascend to such a challenging, rewarding, high-status profession. Part of the assumption underlying the rationale for their privileged criteria for admission and hiring seems to be that there is a unique and profound public health crisis impacting black Americans and that the cause of this is entirely or almost entirely various kinds of supposed implicit bias, residual individual racism, and of course all of the ubiquitous if mostly invisible forms of systemic, structural, and institutional racism. Black patients need black doctors, etc. Black doctors all somehow have an all-encompassing wisdom and superior judgment based on standpoint in society and lived experience. How are health outcomes, I wonder, for working class white or Latino men? Are oppressive systems deleteriously impacting their health - or are they making bad choices for which they are chiefly responsible? Maybe their own toxic masculinity is to blame. Maybe more doctors who are black women will ameliorate these issues, too. Or maybe their lives don’t really matter so much. There is absolutely an element of the fetishization of skin color and race - that black patients are holy victims and any little black girl who feels like being a doctor should automatically be first in line. I think about all of the other highly-promising aspiring doctors, prospective med students of other backgrounds who are brilliant, kind, determined, who overcome much themselves, and whose dreams are dashed. Inevitably, I also think of the cumulative bigger-picture consequences in terms of the quality of medical care. Maybe in some ways it will actually be improved. But, unless every previous objective metric of knowledge, excellence, and skill was just invalid, some irrelevant vestige of bias, surely scraping most of those measures of ability in order to achieve what’s now considered an equitable result will have a very real world impact on the decree of expertise and quality of care. Maybe the farcical end point will be when all black women are automatically conferred the title, MD, at birth, and all doctors must be black women in order to be licensed and a practice. There are situations in which being a solid doctor with an empathetic personality is good enough. There are other situations in which differences in knowledge and skill will determine whether patients live or die. The other ineluctable issue is what the broader public will think - how they will see the profession and how they will perceive doctors of these identities which are now so obviously highly-privileged in admissions and hiring for some of the most challenging, highest-status, most remunerated professions there are. No one will be able to say a public word. But what will they think and what will they share in their most private conversations?
The practice of medicine requires several things: Reasonable intelligence, the ability to relate to people in an empathetic way, the ability to think critically and react and respond to crisis situations without panicking. I would imagine most people would want a competent, caring doctor who will do their best for their patients. I could see a situation where some would prefer doctors who "looked" like them and I can certainly understand women preferring women doctors as their gynecologists. However, for all the talk of diversity, who really cares what one's doctor looks like as long as they are competent? And let's be real, in today's medical climate, you may have numerous doctors involved in your care at different times, ER doctors, Family Doctors, Urgent Care, specialists, etc. Additionally, there may be cultural ideas about what careers are the most preferable. Maybe more Asians prefer medicine than Whites, Blacks or Latinos. You can't force people into careers they don't really want, people will self-select the careers they prefer. On the other hand, let's look at ways to improve school systems for all kids, especially the socio-economically deprived so we can give them a level playing field from the bottom up, not favoritism at the top.
https://reason.com/2022/10/03/maitland-jones-jr-organic-chemistry-nyu-fired/
I know this story was even covered in the NYT and is getting a fair amount of play nationally, re: the empty-headed audacity of the complaining students and the craven “our wealthy customers are always right” cave by the administration. How does anyone take NYU seriously anymore when it comes to the hard sciences? How does anyone take seriously NYU grads who apply for medical school? (Very unfair to the professors still trying to teach with rigor and demand serious effort from their students; very unfair to the truly accomplished STEM grads from NYU whose reputations may be affected by this stunt). But this story really says it all. How much does NYU cost? And what does a graduate really get other than four years in lower Manhattan and all the non-academic amenities such schools now offer their mostly wealthy customers? Would-be med students at a supposedly top school, now demanding organic chemistry be dumbed down enough so that pretty much anyone there who wants to be a doctor (for what - money and status?) can get in without having to show they have the knowledge, work ethic, and intellectual chops to even get through a core prerequisite. That pretty much says it all. What does the world’s phoniest, least impressive “public intellectual”, Ibram X, says we should use as our key criterion: the students’ “desire to learn”?! Not, of course a desire to learn manifested in rigorous study - or even going to class, watching the videos the professor made and posted at his own expense, or making a serious effort to understand what in exam questions was even being asked. No, just the assertion that they want to learn (and, let me guess, never ending accusations that any failure on their part is a sign of some sort of racism, either personal or institutional, interfering with that desire to learn). Look, that surgeon really “desired” to perform the transplant competently, but personal and systemic biases interfered in their ability to actually do so. That can only mean we must double and redouble “antiracist” racial discrimination against the most demonstrably knowledgeable and competent potential doctors until enough demonstrably less knowledgeable and competent feel that their desire to learn and desire to ascend to the top of some of the most challenging professions most consequential to public health and safety are duly honored and respected.
Our enemies need not fear us, we are destroying ourselves quite nicely from within.