We recently completed a two-week national bioethics tour through 23 medical schools and universities with Medical Students for Life of America, during which we hoped to let some of America’s top medical students know that they are not alone in facing discrimination based on their pro-life beliefs. Nearly 1,000 medical students from both sides of this debate joined us to engage this question, from Harvard Medical School to Mayo, from the University of Pittsburgh to the University of Virginia. Some of the stories we heard may startle you.
Take “Christine,” who said that none of her professors talk about relationships in medicine, only the ideology of just performing the procedure. We also learned of “Ryan,” who was punished by his own mentor. He was the only one among his peers to suggest adoption for a woman in a troubled pregnancy; everyone else recommended abortion as the first and only option. A memo by his professor later surfaced in which he declared that “Ryan” would be a future abortion-clinic bomber. This memo was never sent to Ryan but went straight into his student file, the hub of school performance evaluation that becomes critical when students apply to residency programs. He was blacklisted for believing women deserve options.
Then there’s “Mary,” who said she felt intellectually assaulted during her OB/GYN rotation in her school’s training hospital. She recalls being inundated with professor instructions to promote abortions continually for pregnant patients, never mind her personal beliefs about it. The same was recommended for sterilization and abortifacients, drugs intended to prevent pregnancy that kill a new human embryo before a woman knows she’s pregnant.
This nationwide discrimination makes countless students hide their beliefs — and their identities — for fear of risking their grades and careers. This means fewer pro-life doctors are available to the increasing number of patients who consider themselves pro-life and seek like-minded doctors. As the wife of one GWU medical student asked after our event there, “What about my conscience rights as a patient?”
— John Bruchalski, M.D., is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Dominique J. Monlezun Jr. is the national coordinator of Medical Students for Life of America.
The ramifications of this discrimination by physicians, against physicians, extends to more than just abortion.
Obamacare seeks to implement Dr. Berwick's vision of medicine by autocrat...as he wrote in his book "New Rules" coauthored with Dr. Brennen about the physician patient relationship:
“Today, this isolated relationship is no longer tenable or possible… Traditional medical ethics, based on the doctor-patient dyad must be reformulated to fit the new mold of the delivery of health care...Regulation must evolve. Regulating for improved medical care involves designing appropriate rules with authority...Health care is being rationalized through critical pathways and guidelines. The primary function of regulation in health care, especially as it affects the quality of medical care, is to constrain decentralized, individualized decision making.”
Medical students, indeed, even doctors, are being indoctrinated by teaching the physician-patient relationship in which the physician's primary responsibility is to the patient, is wrong.
In Obamacare the physician's duty is to society.
Hence, Obamacare's so called Accountable Care Organizations, which replace the physician with an "organization" which will not be accountable to an individual patient. Rather, the physician is replaced by a bureacratic organization which will only make money by adhering to protocol medicine written by bureaucrats.
Unfortunately, many teaching programs contain physicians who believe in single payer, top down medicine dictated by bureaucracy.
Dehuminization of students and patients,in this case, the fetus, is a necessary part of transforming doctors into government automatons. This has worked before...in Nazi Germany.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe above environment is not what I faced in the South in the late 80s, so it is distressing that despite the country becoming more pro-life, academia is picking on their students in an attempt to keep the dark arts from dying out. I'm not sure what the point is of forcing someone to do something they think is immoral, especially when you have to threaten them with poor grades. I'll let the psychiatrists sort that one out. In any event, my advice to pro-life students is 1) stick to your guns despite the hit you might take, 2) make your objections known politely, 3) be indispensable to the team in all other areas, and 4) study hard so that you ace the test. It shouldn't have to be that way, but it is. Doctors are people, too, subjected to the same biases and shortcomings everyone else is.
The good news is that residencies look at the entire picture and a poor grade in one area is not likely to torpedo your aspirations, unless, of course, you want to go into OB/GYN. The better news for "Ryan" is that he probably has an actionable claim against the doctor who wrote such unprofessional drivel.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow long before medical students and interns will be required to learn abortion procedures in order to graduate from medical school? How long before physicians will be required to perform abortions in order to keep their licenses and practice medicine? Don't think this couldn't happen? Think again.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is imperative that we overturn Obamacare.
I would not normally trust the government to behave any more ethically than a private entity. However, a government whose regulators (such as Doctor Berwick) are hostile to the Judeo-Christian ethical frame of reference has become an enemy, and is certainly NOT an entity that I want to be making health-care decisions for any human being.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJeanne T.: Making training in abortion mandatory has already been proposed at several major schools.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIF there are 1,000 pro-life med students, why in bloody hell do they NOT join together as ONE voice against these professors who want to murder born and unborn babies?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot really news here. Population control has always been a pillar of the progressive movement.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have yet to meet one woman who chose adoption and/or parenting (over abortion)when facing an unplanned pregnancy that has regretted that decision.
Sadly, I cannot say that for those who chose abortion under stressful situations. Those ramifications seem far more traumatic than offering life...
Lastly, I have seen few "unplanned pregnancies." When asked the question, "Were you using birth control?, the answer is consistently a resounding, "No."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis article doesn't really present the ramifications in the other direction. If a doctor wants to use the 'conscience' argument to not prescribe contraception or perform vasectomies or perform abortions, that's fine.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf 'Mary' was more realistically required to inform patients that abortion was an option for them, that is another thing entirely. It is not acceptable or within the rights of conscience for a doctor to pretend that abortion doesn't exist as an option. It is not ethical to withhold information about MEDICAL options from patients, like a tubal litigation, if one is medically indicated (or even just a personal choice). It is not acceptable to lie to patients about the risks of procedures to steer them away from it.