I remember how it was -- JR
Ending medical-school affirmative action will be a plus for patients
Yes, indeed. I have seen mention of blacks refusing to see black doctors in public hospitals because they don't trust "black" qualifications. Embarrassing! But who can blame them?
The US Supreme Court effectively prohibited university admissions officers from giving preferential treatment to applicants based on their race this summer.
Many medical-school leaders decried the high court’s ruling, claiming the ban will lead to less diversity within their student bodies, a less diverse crop of physicians and worse outcomes for minority patients.
But it’s not clear diversity within the physician workforce improves patient outcomes — which ought to be the primary objective of medical education.
In fact, there’s evidence affirmative-action policies can harm patients as well as aspiring doctors themselves.
It’s an article of faith among affirmative action’s defenders that a more diverse physician workforce benefits patients.
In her dissent from the majority’s ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that affirmative action helps increase “the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds” who become doctors, which in turn “improves ‘healthcare access and health outcomes in medically underserved communities.’”
The Association of American Medical Colleges echoed Sotomayor, saying it was “deeply disappointed” in the majority’s ruling, which “demonstrates a lack of understanding of the critical benefits of racial and ethnic diversity.”
“This decision will hasten the deaths of Black people in this country and we already die prematurely,” Advancing Health Equity founder and physician Uché Blackstock blasted.
They’re referring in part to a handful of studies showing black Americans post better health outcomes when treated by black doctors.
But researcher Ian Kingsbury recently examined those studies’ methodologies and concluded that “systematic reviews” have “found ‘no relationship’ or ‘mixed results’ between race/ethnicity and quality of communication and ‘inconclusive’ evidence for patient outcomes.”
Admissions officers’ obsessive focus on race often causes them to ignore applicants’ academic and clinical aptitude — with dire consequences for the applicants themselves and ultimately the patients they treat.
Affirmative-action policies seek to give underrepresented groups a leg up in the admissions process. By design, that means admitting applicants who likely would have been rejected based on their test scores and grade-point averages alone.
From 2013 to 2016, 56% of black applicants and 31% of Hispanic applicants with below-average Medical College Admission Test scores and undergraduate GPAs were admitted to medical school, compared with just 8% of white applicants and 6% of Asian applicants with similar scores and GPAs.
It has been exhaustively documented that undergraduate “GPAs and MCAT total scores are strong predictors of academic performance in medical school through graduation,” as one study from the Association of American Medical Colleges itself put it.
In other words, affirmative action might help underqualified applicants get into med school. But it won’t necessarily keep them there.
Black medical school students drop out, citing academic problems, at a rate 10 times higher than white students.
It’s cruel — not compassionate — to admit students who aren’t qualified for the intellectual rigors of medical school.
It sets them up for failure, saddles them with debt they could have avoided and wastes resources that could have gone towards training qualified applicants who will actually practice medicine.
Worst of all, admitting underqualified students ultimately hurts patients.
“MCAT scores are predictive of student performance” on both Step 1 and Step 2 of the US Medical Licensing Examination, concluded one 2016 study.
Those licensing exams, in turn, are indicative of students’ skill at treating patients during their clinical rotations.
“USMLE scores have a positive linear association with clinical performance as a medical student,” noted a 2019 study, “even after correcting for gender, institution, and test-taking ability.”
The relationship holds after students graduate, complete residencies and become practicing physicians.
A 2014 study of US-licensed doctors who trained overseas found that “after adjustment for severity of illness, physician characteristics, and hospital characteristics, performance on Step 2” had “a statistically significant inverse relationship with mortality. Each additional point on the examination was associated with a 0.2% decrease in mortality.”
The purpose of medical school is not to maximize diversity.
It’s to transform America’s best and brightest students into the most competent physicians possible, no matter their race, gender or any other demographic consideration.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/17/ending-medical-school-affirmative-action-will-be-a-plus-for-patients/
*******************************************************College has become a government-subsidized rip-off. It’s good that fewer people go
JOHN STOSSEL
It’s August. Many young people head off to college. This year, fortunately, fewer will go.
I say “fortunately” because college is now an overpriced scam.
Overpriced, because normal incentives to be frugal and make smart judgements about who should go to college were thrown out when the federal government took over granting student loans.
Why?
Because our government basically vomits money at everyone who applies.
If private lenders gave out the loans, they’d look at whether they were likely to be paid back. They’d ask questions like: “What will you study? You really think majoring in dance will lead to a job that will pay you enough to allow you to pay us back?”
Government rarely asks these questions. Bureaucrats throw money at students. Many don’t benefit. Many shouldn’t even be going to college. Today, nearly half of the students given loans don’t graduate even after six years.
Many feel like failures.
College is good for people who want to be college professors or who major in fields like engineering and computer science that might lead to good jobs. But that’s not most people. Government loans encourage everyone to go to college, even if they’re not very interested in academics.
Government’s handouts also invite colleges to keep raising tuition. Over the past 50 years, college cost rose at four times the rate of inflation. Four times!
Years ago, I reported how colleges were suddenly wasting money on luxuries like fancy gyms and even day spas. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that it’s gotten worse: The University of Oklahoma bought a monastery in Italy for study abroad students! The University of Kentucky built a theater where students play video games.
“Why not raise tuition?” asks the typical college president. “Uncle Sam pays the bill!”
When I went to Princeton, tuition was $2,000. Now its $60,000.
Colleges have little incentive to cut costs or innovate. Princeton still “teaches” by having professors lecture. Super boring. I slept through many.
Although today, I guess I should thank Princeton because its tedious lectures inspired me to try to find better ways to present information. That made me successful on TV.
Today, student loan borrowers owe tens of thousands of dollars. Last year, the president announced he would cancel up to $20,000 of that debt per person.
Indebted students loved that! A group named the Student Debt Crisis Center called that “a major win for many.”
But it would be a major loss for many more! Canceling debt is unfair to the people who work hard and pay off their debts.
Fortunately, Biden’s plan was struck down by the Supreme Court, which said only Congress has the right to cancel student debt. Congress didn’t.
Now Biden’s trying again. The administration announced they will forgive debt for anyone who’s been making payments for more than 20 years. That’s better, but still bad. Maybe courts will stop this handout, too.
College students take on loans and spend decades in debt because they believe they must get a degree to be hired. But that’s no longer true. IBM, Accenture, Dell, Bank of America, Google and other big companies, recognizing the uselessness of many undergraduate degrees, recently dropped college-degree requirements. So have state governments in Maryland, Utah, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Alaska, North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia.
Good jobs in the trades, like welding and plumbing, don’t require a college degree. Trade school programs often take less than two years and cost much less than college.
To have a good life or get a good job, you don’t need fancy dining halls, video game auditoriums or a college degree.
College has become a government-subsidized rip-off. It’s good that fewer people go.
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/99724-college-rip-off-2023-08-16
****************************************************One State Will Not Allow Credit for Controversial AP African American Studies Course
Earlier this year, Townhall covered how the College Board announced it would revise its Advanced Placement African American studies course following criticism from 2024 presidential candidate and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.
Since he assumed office, DeSantis has said that he would not allow public schools to offer the course over its “woke” and “radical” indoctrination concepts. This week, another state announced that it would scrap credit altogether for the course.
The Arkansas Education Department removed course credit for an Advanced Placement African American Studies course, according to multiple reports. This occurred just before the start of the 2023-2024 school year. The course will not be eligible for early college credit, Kimberly Mundell, the department’s communications director, confirmed to NBC News.
"The department encourages the teaching of all American history and supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination," Mundell said in a statement.
In March, GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed the LEARNS Act. One of the components of the law banned teaching on “gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexual reproduction” before fifth grade. In addition, the legislation banned lessons that would “indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory,” according to ABC News.
Reportedly, Mundell told local outlet KHBS-TV that the class was being piloted at some schools and still undergoing major revisions.
“Arkansas law contains provisions regarding prohibited topics,” she reportedly said. “Without clarity, we cannot approve a pilot that may unintentionally put a teacher at risk of violating Arkansas law.”
According to The New York Times, students at Central High School in Little Rock had already enrolled in the course before it was revealed that they would not receive early college credit for it. They were also told that the course “may not meet graduation requirements.”
The class reportedly first emerged in the state in February, one month before Sanders signed the LEARNS Act.
Last month, in Florida, the board of education approved new standards for how black history would be taught in schools, which Townhall covered. The updated standards advise schools to teach that enslaved people in the United States “developed skills” that “could be applied for their personal benefit” and teach that there were “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans,” according to The Washington Post.
“In Florida we are taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory,” DeSantis said in a statement in December. “We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other. We also have a responsibility to ensure that parents have the means to vindicate their rights when it comes to enforcing state standards. Finally, we must protect Florida workers against the hostile work environment that is created when large corporations force their employees to endure CRT-inspired ‘training’ and indoctrination.”
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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