#Jeffrey A. Singer

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jeffrey A. Singer and Erec Smith

Published: Apr 7, 2024

Viewing patients not as individuals but as members of a group is hazardous not only to individuals’ health but also to society’s health.

In 2019, Stanley Goldfarb, the former associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, wrote an article lamenting the change in his institution’s mission from training future doctors to treat every patient equally and nonjudgmentally to prioritizing “social justice.” In January, a Wall Street Journal editorial reported that students at the University of California School of Medicine are now required to take a course on “structural racism,” which segregates them by race, requiring them to withdraw to different areas and discuss anti-racist prompts. That same month, Jeffrey Flier, former dean of Harvard University Medical School, wrote a lengthy essay bemoaning the school’s curriculum changes. “In a rush to embed vague, contestable, and potentially harmful versions of social justice into medical education, we risk compromising the very foundation of medical training, and ultimately, patient care,” he concluded.

On March 19, Representative Greg Murphy, (R., N.C.), a medical doctor, introduced the Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education (EDUCATE) Act. The bill would cut off federal funding for medical schools that force students and faculty to adopt specific beliefs, take loyalty oaths, or discriminate against students or patients by implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) classes in their curricula.

Contemporary DEI is undergirded by a divisive and illiberal ideology known, generally, as critical social justice. This form of scholarly activism rests on several tenets that ultimately denote the idea that Western civilization is systemically racist and that society can be split into two groups: the oppressors (i.e., white people) and the oppressed (non-white people). This ideology, which many have called “cultural Marxism,” blames all of society’s ills on “whiteness,” a veiled term for capitalism and tenets of classical liberalism. It values group consciousness over individual sovereignty, lived experience over the scientific method, and cancellation over civil discourse.

Can such an ideology coexist with science-driven medical education? As one may glean from these tenets of anti-racist education, which represent the pedagogical application of critical social justice, the answer is a clear “No.” In an essay juxtaposing “liberal” social justice and critical social justice, Michael Mills, co-founder of the Society for Open Inquiry in Behavioral Science, explained, “When social justice comes up for discussion, the first question that should be posed is: ‘What type of social justice are you referring to — liberal or critical?’” Sadly, the DEI we see in medical schools and beyond aligns with the latter.

These days, medical schools include DEI training as part of the curriculum. DEI even infects continuing-education classes that physicians must take to maintain certification in a specialty. A recent “maintenance of certification” course for board-certified general surgeons focused on differentiating microaggressions from macroaggressions — nothing about diagnosing or treating surgical problems. How does this keep a surgeon current on the latest advances in managing surgical diseases?

One of us is a general surgeon. On more than one occasion, he performed emergency, life-saving surgery on victims of gang-related gun violence who were sporting swastikas and “white power” and antisemitic-slogan tattoos. Marinated in the ethos of pre-DEI medical training, he did not allow the patients’ tattoos or criminal backgrounds to let him lose focus on the sole mission: saving their lives. Law enforcement and the courts addressed the circumstances surrounding the injuries later.

Medical school is the place to learn anatomy and physiology and how to diagnose and treat human diseases and injuries. It is not the place to learn to judge people as oppressors or the oppressed or to prioritize treatment based on a hierarchy of victimhood. It is not supposed to teach doctors to decide who gets a kidney transplant based on whether a patient belongs to a historically disadvantaged group. It betrays the medical profession’s noble mission to consider one patient more righteous and deserving of treatment than another and to prioritize treatment based on anything other than its degree of urgency.

We are not saying that the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion per se do not have a place in the field of medicine; these concepts, as commonly understood outside the DEI regime, can be virtues in a free and pluralistic society. However, two significant caveats must be acknowledged.

First, education in DEI efforts need not take valuable time from education in the practice of medicine. In fact, moral and ethical issues regarding physicians and patients are already addressed in the burgeoning and separate field of medical humanities, an interdisciplinary field focused on the confluence of health, medicine, and life experiences from the perspective of humanistic disciplines such as philosophy, history, literature, religion, sociology, and anthropology.

For example, Stanford Medicine’s Presence initiative “champions the human experience in medicine” with the belief that “being present is integral to the art and the science of medicine and predicates the quality of medical care.” Concepts like diversity, equity, and inclusion seem implicit in the medical humanities as they are commonly understood, which strongly suggests that the creation of separate DEI programs is superfluous and a misuse of time and resources.

What’s more, some schools, like the University of Texas’s Institute for Bioethics and Health Humanities, offer separate certificates in medical humanities for interested medical students. The key aspects of these programs are that they are voluntary and separate from education in the actual practice of medicine. Medical humanities as a field may be an important endeavor, but compelling medical-school students to take substantial time away from medical education to take part in such an endeavor is impractical and unwise.

The second caveat is that even if the field of medical humanities remains separate and distinct, DEI initiatives must still be done in ways that are not divisive and decidedly illiberal. That is, it cannot be undergirded by critical social justice. Unfortunately, some medical-humanities programs may be doing just that. For example, the Health Humanities Consortium seeks to educate both health professionals and the general public on “the experiences of patients, caregivers, and communities as they are shaped in relation to models of disease, illness, health, and wellness.”

This is a noble endeavor. However, the consortium’s statements on justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging (JEDIB) smack of critical social justice, as can be gleaned from its strategic plan. Although the exact ways JEDIB is implemented pedagogically is not clear from the website, its emphasis on systemic racism as an uncontestable fact, as well as concepts of lived experience and epistemic justice, should be red flags to anyone familiar with critical social justice ideology.

DEI training’s pernicious effects on clinicians extend beyond treating physical conditions. Its impact on how clinicians treat people with mental-health problems is bone-chilling. The American Psychological Association recently released its new Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men based on the premise that “traditional masculinity is . . . on the whole harmful.” It encourages psychotherapists working with boys and men to “address issues of privilege and power related to sexism.”

Writing in the Spectator, noted academic psychiatrist Sally Satel decries the new “social justice therapy” for its “total disregard for the patient’s agency, assuming that social forces are the singularly important determinant of their problems.” Why in the world should anyone seek help from a mental-health professional who regards them as inherently flawed because of biologically determined characteristics?

One of liberalism’s great insights is that every person is a unique, autonomous individual. Health professionals have an ugly record of betraying that understanding. The German medical profession embraced Nazi racial ideology during the Third Reich when performing euthanasia and live human experiments on members of “racially inferior” groups. Closer to home, American public-health officials’ implicit belief that members of some racial groups had less individual worth than others was behind the infamous Tuskegee experiment with untreated syphilis.

Viewing patients not as individuals but as members of a group is hazardous not only to individuals’ health but also to society’s health. It can lead to bad outcomes.

Jeffrey A. Singer practices general surgery in Phoenix, Ariz., and is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Erec Smith is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and an associate professor of rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania.

[ Via: https://archive.today/gPcZZ ]

[riphertoshreds]

Debbie Harry photographed by Jeffrey Mayer sometime in the 70s.

[dumb-zombie-girl]

If you think of different characters and actors/ actresses that I miss let me know and I'll make a part 2 or reblog the post and put it in the tags

[pendingfeels]

THE BOYS—

S04E03 - We'll Keep the Red Flag Flying Here

[kamisobsessed]

Those of you who have been to an SPN convention, how much did you spend in total and what all did you get/do? I sooo want to go next year, and at least meet Jensen and Jared, but I know it can get pricey and I don't know if I'll have enough🥺

[printcharms]

[cyb3rl0v3x3]

I JUST REALIZED THE SAME PERSON WHO MADE SUPERNATURAL MADE THE BOYS AND I WAS SITTING HERE ON SEASON 4 WONDERING WHY THE HELL EVERY SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER IS IN THIS DAMN SHOW

[carryonmywaywardcaptain]

NOT KRIPKE OUT HERE TRYING TO BREAK THE INTERNET WITH THAT POST-CREDITS SCENE ON THE BOYS

👏👏👏

[rocknrollflames]

I first fell in love with Izzy in high school when my dad showed me Guns N’ Roses, now I’m in college and my love for the band has reawakened. I appreciate all the different Izzy stuff you have posted 😭

Don't Cry, sweetheart! 😭

It's hard not to - I know, lol! Thank you so much for appreciating the Izzy Stradlin content! Like you and so many others, Izzy means a lot to me. I too am a big GNR fan. They are admittedly my favorite band at the moment and have been for ... hmmm ... I guess almost 2 years? (Just in case my blog somehow doesn't reflect that.) GNR is a band you can rediscover or come back to again and again, because their songs are timeless. I hope to visit The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and when I do, you can be sure I will post dozens of photos of the GNR exhibit.

Just in case you didn't know, Izzy was and still is the heart of GNR. I once met a guy at a GNR show who bad-mouthed Izzy and I had to put one foot in front of the other and slowly walk away. 😂 Thanks for writing, and for recognizing my blog and my love for Izzy and GNR. And thank you for appreciating Izzy. ☺️

Rock and Roll is a feeling. Not every song has to be profound or have the lyrics dissected with a fine-tooth comb - or hair pick, lol. To me, Izzy personifies rock and roll. He is rock and roll.

♥️ 🤟 Keep listening! 🤟 ♥️

Love,

Flames 🔥

[locke-esque-monster]

I am once again putting out into the universe that few things would make me happier than a scene between Jim Beaver and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Season 4 of The Boys. Despite both of them casting long shadows as very different father figures in SPN, and Bobby and John actually knowing each other for a long time, those two do not share a single scene in SPN canon. So a modern take on of what those two would be like in a scene together would be a delightful Easter egg. Because knowing what we know about Robert Singer, and the Negan-like type I see hints of from JDM in the trailer, it wouldn't be a smooth interaction (much like John and Bobby rocky history).

Maybe it's a Hail Mary of a wish (a Hail Kripke?) but I'm fully ready to try to visualize and manifest this shit into reality.

I can practically taste what it would look like to see Robert Singer chew Morgan's character out for a bad plan and Morgan bull-headedly fighting back...

[bejustlikethem]

Selena Gomez

Jeffrey Campbell See-Stars Boot

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[astrobei]

ok i need to get this off my chest and i think you’ve mentioned you like community so here i am

in a world where acswy is a sitcom it’s just s2ep1 of community where mike and will are jeff and britta

this episode is so important to me i hope you understand the vision

ok first of all. i love love love LOVEEEE community !!! it’s in my Shows Of All Time list and i genuinely believe that television peaked with seasons 2-3. 😁 🙃🤸👍😗 <- me being so normal and fine and cool about it . anyway. i saw this ask come in literally ten mins after i finished that episode which was spooky and scary of you but this is SO TRUE !! if you even care. the limp fish kiss in the middle of class. the proposal and the Irish Singer walking in. (it’s dustin singing in a bad accent btw)

[printcharms]

[plaid-castiel]

Wait now Alex is in The Boys spin off show? This entire series is a supernatural reunion tour and I love it so much

[gioelline]

Bakit kaya nangangamba

Sa tuwing ika'y nakikita

Sana nama'y magpakilala

Ilang ulit nang nagkabangga

Aklat kong dala'y pinulot mo pa

'Di ka pa rin nagpakilala

Bawat araw sinusundan

'Di ka naman tumitingin

Ano'ng aking dapat gawin

Bakit kaya umiiwas

Binti ko ba'y mayroong gasgas

Nais ko lang magpakilala

Dito'y mayroon sa puso ko

Munting puwang laan sa 'yo

Maaari na bang magpakilala

Bawat araw sinusundan

'Di ka naman tumitingin

Ano'ng aking dapat gawin

Kailan (kailan)

Kailan mo ba mapapansin ang aking lihim

Kahit ano'ng aking gawin 'di mo pinapansin

Kailan (kailan)

Kailan hahaplusin ang pusong bitin na bitin

Kahit ano'ng gawing lambing 'di mo pa rin pansin

Dito'y mayroon sa puso ko

Munting puwang laan sa 'yo

Maaari na bang magpakilala

Bawat araw sinusundan

'Di ka naman tumitingin

Ano'ng aking dapat gawin

Kailan kailan mo ba mapapansin ang aking lihim

Kahit ano'ng aking gawin 'di mo pinapansin

Kailan (kailan)

Kailan hahaplusin ang pusong bitin na bitin

Kahit ano'ng gawing lambing 'di mo pa rin pansin (kailan kahit anong aking gawin di mo pinapansin oh kailan)