Merit Must Trump DEI in Medical Education

A tragic irony in the dismissal of reason, evidence, and excellence among DEI acolytes is that it’s almost certain to inflict the highest toll on the patients DEI ostensibly seeks to help.

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Medical professor teaching young students at a university

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Medical schools have eagerly embraced the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) agenda, which has supplanted merit and excellence. Common sense says that’s a mistake, and a new study makes the folly of that decision clearer than ever.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on May 6, observes that among newly trained hospitalists, scores on the certification exam of the American Board of Internal Medicine certification are positively associated with better outcomes among hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries. Specifically, patients assigned to internists who scored in the top quartile on the exam were 8 percent less likely to die within one week of hospital admission than were patients assigned to internists who scored in the bottom quartile. Patients assigned to the highest-scoring internists were also 9.3 percent less likely to be readmitted within one week of discharge than were patients assigned to the lowest-performing internists.

IK

About the Author

Ian Kingsbury

Ian Kingsbury is the director of research at Do No Harm, a health-care-advocacy organization.

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