Medical school was once aimed at applying scientific knowledge to treat the sick and injured. But these days, we’re told society itself is sick, and it must be healed by the elixir of enlightenment. Therefore, devoted future doctors in Minnesota are pledging to wokeness and a complete righting of the world’s wrongs.
The University of Minnesota Medical School (UMMS) class of 2026 recently held its White Coat Ceremony. An article on the college’s website covers the service’s significance:
Being presented with a white coat is a rite of passage for medical students signifying their entrance into medical school. In 1993, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation established this tradition at Columbia University. U of M Medical School was one of the early adopters of this ceremony, now executed at most medical schools across the country.
The most crucial element of the ceremony is taking the Hippocratic Oath to obligate their responsibility to care for future patients with integrity, empathy and humility. It provides a robust emphasis on compassion in combination with clinical excellence.
But there’s more to it than that; each class adds its own elements like toppings to a sundae. UMMS Media Relations Manager Kat Dodge explained to Campus Reform:
“[I]t is a common practice at medical schools in the United States to build upon the intent of the Hippocratic Oath… Each year at the University of Minnesota Medical School, the incoming students work with faculty to write an oath that reflects these core elements, values, and ethics the class aspires to uphold.”
This year’s supplements at UMMS included care of the Earth, antiracism, and an indication that Western medicine isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
A handout pictured at AlphaNews.org displays the contents of the 2022 ceremony’s vow, and it begins with a confession of thievery — AKA a land acknowledgment.
Why would a medical school dip its toes into something as wholly removed from medicine as a noting of the top ping pong players in Australia? Presumably, because it’s what’s in style:
Our institution is located on Dakota land. Today, many Indigenous people from throughout the state, including Dakota and Ojibwe, call the Twin cities home.
To be fair, the students “also recognize this acknowledgment is not enough.”
Somehow, doctors are going to triumphantly force into existence unprecedented justice and defeat white supremacy. They’re also going to battle the notion that there are only men and women. In fact, by some method not made known, the people who write you a prescription for your rash will manage to defeat all planetary oppression:
We commit to uprooting the legacy and perpetuation of structural violence deeply embedded within the healthcare system. We recognize the inequities built by past and present traumas rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, the gender binary, ableism, and all forms of oppression. As we enter this profession with opportunity for growth, we commit to promoting a culture of antiracism, listening, and amplifying voices for positive change.
It’s a tall order.
The students also promise to “be respectful” of all patients’ “unique identities.” Additionally, they swear to be “authentic” and own their “mistakes and biases.” You may just need to have some sort of pain stop giving you trouble, but the new breed of medical men and women and other gender identities will “empower [your] autonomy.”
And there’s no more of the nonsense that they know medicine better than you do:
We affirm that patients are the experts of their own bodies and will partner with them to facilitate holistic wellbeing.
If you’re the expert, do they still serve a medical purpose? Perhaps they should teach yoga…
We will prioritize care for the mind, body, and soul of not only our patients, but of our colleagues and selves. With this devotion, we will champion our personal wellness…
What arguably stands out most is the group’s denouncement of science. Western medicine only has value if it’s the correct approach to physical health. Via the Scientific Method, its point has been to eliminate fallacies produced by superstition, ignorance, and ineffective technology. As it turns out, per UMMS, that was a mistake. All the old and proven-wrong stuff is right:
We pledge to honor all Indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by Western medicine.
They do have a point — what is incorrect is indeed marginalized by correctness.
Heroically, the students “commit to healing our planet and communities.”
I’m not sure a professional group has ever shouldered such a robust responsibility as that of the students at UMMS. Good luck to them on their mission to right the world of all wrongs while undermining their own training and also sending people for colonoscopies.
-ALEX
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