The triumph of DEI at UCLA medical school
Everything falls before the almighty DEI deity. It’s more important that doctors fit the proper woke demographics than that they be competent, although I don’t think the public was consulted on the question:
Long considered one of the best medical schools in the world, the University of California, Los Angeles’s David Geffen School of Medicine receives as many as 14,000 applications a year. Of those, it accepted just 173 students in the 2023 admissions cycle, a record-low acceptance rate of 1.3 percent. The median matriculant took difficult science courses in college, earned a 3.8 GPA, and scored in the 88th percentile on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT).
Sounds good. But that’s the median. This is the reality:
In interviews with the Free Beacon and complaints to UCLA officials, including investigators in the university’s Discrimination Prevention Office, faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed.
[Since the advent in 2020 of Dean of Admissions Jennifer Lucero] Race-based admissions have turned UCLA into a “failed medical school,” said one former member of the admissions staff. “We want racial diversity so badly, we’re willing to cut corners to get it.”
This story is based on written correspondence between UCLA officials, internal data on student performance, and interviews with eight professors at the medical school—six of whom have worked with or under Lucero on medical student and residency admissions.
I find over and over that year 2020 keeps coming up in terms of the explosion of DEI domination in so many institutions, universities prominent among them, although the trend had been going on already for many years, of course.
In the article, Lucero is quoted as saying, during the admissions process involving a black female candidate whose grades were substandard: “Did you not know African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else?” and that therefore “we need people like this in the medical school.”
That sort of thinking reduces everything to group identity. If black women’s health is particularly compromised, what they really need i is a black woman doctor even if she’s inferior as a doctor. Everything is race and sex and groups, and meritocracy is a bad word. However, I bet if Lucero did a survey of black women and asked them which they’d prefer, the best doctor or a doctor that might not be so good but who would match them in race and sex, they’d answer they wanted the best doctor.
What’s more, are black women dying at a higher rate than everyone else? Of course not. See Figure 2, the chart there on death rates , race, and sex, and you immediately see that the death rate for black males is the highest. I’m going to assume that violent death is a big part of that. Black females have death rates that are significantly lower, and in fact their rates of death are lower than that of white males. Hmmm; I doubt Lucero will be advocating for more white males in medical school as a result.
And then there’s this:
UCLA medical school hired a new dean of admissions, Jennifer Lucero, In 2020. Since then, the number of students failing their shelf exams—standardized tests taken after each clinical rotation—has exploded, rising as much as tenfold in some subjects.
That wasn't a coincidence. pic.twitter.com/tLJZCqZAQf
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 23, 2024
“faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed.”
Just as in the military, they’ll simply lower the standards. Whatever it takes to correct the DEI ‘imbalance’ will be implemented. No matter how many people have to die to achieve it. The left has never hesitated to shed the blood of hundreds of millions.
As an MD admitted to a private, not public, medical school way back when, and with a very productive medical practice, including outreach offices by the group I founded to underserved communities, I would seek a different career today. Medicare, Medicaid, DEI, prior authorization, and the FDA are all masters to be served.They do not give a toot about the QUALITY of patient care either.
Geoffrey: Blacks are not “struggling to succeed” in medical schools. They are struggling to get in; the majority of MD admissions and graduates are FEMALE.Blacks are are next in line, and then finally come white (ugh!) men, who nationally total about 25% of new MDs.I remind that females are not each one full-time equivalent MD; they get the vapors, the cramps, the dysmenorrhea every month, and they have kids. Male MDs are fathers too, but, for example, of the 20 dermatologists in my city, only 2 are male and they are the only ones working full-time.
Maintaining a diverse and inclusive environment is our mission, UCLA Geffen Medical School declares on its online “Mission” statement. Michael Shermer replies to Peter Boghossian, after the latter shares his find at the the school’s web page — then it “is no longer a medical school, it’s something else!” says Shermer.
From a fresh video chat at YouTube— see 1:17-21m
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5epKdjofSTk
Shermer is bullish on the U.S. short-term. But Boghossian raised this story to Shermer to see if he could move the needle against Shermer’s boundless optimism for the future of the USA.
Boghossian finds that his point is considered a good reason for shot-term pessimism.
It’s the logical end of this crap.
University of California, Los Angeles’s David Geffen School of Medicine
Well, there’s your problem. Geffen is an LA entertainment mogul worth $9.1 billion. He’s gay. During Covid he entertained Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and +1s on his yacht. He’s a powerful Dem donor.
Joni Mitchell wrote “Free Man in Paris” for Geffen on her “Court and Spark” album.
–“Joni Mitchell – Free Man in Paris (live, 1979)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Zm6mq5UcE
Back in the day, competence was by far the biggest criteria for admission to medical schools. My mother was diagnosed with Addison’s disease, and after getting appropriate medication for it, lived an energetic life- including three years of teaching school. After I graduated from high school, my parents moved to the Washington DC area for my father’s job.
My mother went to Georgetown Medical School for her Addison’s disease checkups. At one appointment at Georgetown Medical School an intern asked her, “Did you ever suffer a severe blow to the back?” As a matter of fact, my mother HAD suffered a severe blow to the back in a horrendous automobile accident. She observed that after the accident, her energy gradually went downhill. (The adrenal cortex would have suffered the blow to the back; a nonfunctioning adrenal cortex defines Addison’s disease. No adrenal cortex, no energy.)
That was an astute question from the Georgetown intern, who happened to be black and female. That was one black female MD who was admitted to medical school for her ability, not for her gender or race.
Diversity means mediocre, you don’t get the best person but instead you get someone who fits a checklist that has nothing to do with the tasks needed.
It’s gotten to the point that I look at medical resumés before choosing doctors. I prefer ones who have been out of medical school for at least fifteen years, thinking that they may have studied when medical schools still taught medicine.
Lucero is a graduate of the Yale Medical School. Interestingly, she attended a common-and-garden state college as an undergraduate. Wondering what the story was there.
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Now, what does it say about your commitment to medicine that you quit practicing and take a job as a higher ed apparatchik? NB., the ideal admissions director is someone familiar with applied statistics and given the franchise to implement a system of impersonal screening. Putting a physician in that role is a waste of human capital. (Unless, of course, she was a lousy doctor).
The problem is obvious: the SHELF exams are both racist and sexist.
Kate is spot on in her review of potential physicians. I do the same. I found my new PCP after moving to Florida by looking through the background of around 30 PCPs associated with Baptist Health (the best of the the two health conglomerates here in northern FL; the other being UFHealth). I decided on a candidate: graduated med school in 98, decorated Navy vet serving in Afghanistan. I set up an appointment just to meet her. We hit it off immediately. I was particularly impressed with her “common sense” approach, which is what I had with my previous fellow doc in CT for 30 years. As my prostate biopsy approached 2 years ago, I began researching prostate oncologists, and found a good candidate. Fortunately, never needed to contact him, but I did my homework.
As Kate said, one first cut criteria is graduation date from med school.
It’s obvious that the problem is not ONLY admission standards. They clearly are cutting the quality of instruction, and the standards needed for a degree.
Meanwhile, apparently the University if North Carolina is seems to be repealing all the DEI nonsense.
Yep I look for old grey headed white guys. My current md has an added bonus of turning wrenches at the ford place at night to help fund his education.
Maybe Chris Rufo needs to look closely at Lucero’s records. He’s been making a difference.
Hooray for UNC, and this vote was for the entire UNC system, not just the flagship campus in Chapel Hill. Our license plates sometimes say, “First in Freedom,” to commemorate NC’s ratification of the US Constitution. Now we’re a leader headed towards more academic freedom and, therefore, better quality academics.
It will take a while to make this “stick,” of course.