This'll Kill Ya! Affirmative Action Doctors Meet Lower Standards

1. For those students applying to medical school with average GPAs (3.40 to 3.59) and average MCAT scores (27-29), black applicants were almost three times more likely to be admitted than their Asian counterparts (85.9% vs. 30%), and 2.4 times more likely than their white counterparts (85.9% vs. 35.9%). Likewise, Hispanic students with average GPAs and average MCAT scores were about twice as likely to be accepted as white applicants (68.7% vs. 35.9%), and more than twice as likely as Asian applicants (68.7% vs. 30%).

2. For students applying to medical school with slightly below average GPAs of 3.20-3.39 and slightly below average MCAT scores of 24-26 (first column in the table), black applicants were more than 8 times as likely to be admitted as Asians (67.3% vs. 7.7%), and more than 5 times as likely as whites.

...U.S. medical schools must be considering race as one important factor in admissions, at least for preferred minority groups (blacks and Hispanics) over non-preferred minority groups (Asians) and whites?
_Carpe Diem

When you are attended by a physician of any race, you have to right to expect that that physician had to meet the high level of standards in acceptance, training, and certification that any other physician had to meet. But with affirmative action in admissions and hiring at all levels of medical school, residency, and hospital positions, the more likely reality is that minority physicians were not held to the same high standards as other trainees and job applicants.

But more disturbing even than the finding that medical schools seem to be admitting less-qualified students on the basis of race and ethnicity is that many of these students can't pass their licensing exams, despite greater resources directed toward helping them than other students received. At every medical school CEO studied, substantially larger numbers of black students than whites either did not take or failed their initial licensing exams, and, in most instances, failed their subsequent licensing tests as well. _Affirmative Action Doctors Can Kill You

There is a great deal of political pressure to advance unqualified minority candidates in a wide variety of fields, from medicine to law to engineering to police and fire fighting. It is just too bad if you or a member of your family happens to be in a situation where you need the best level of help, but are instead forced to settle for much less.

Here is one example of an affirmative action doctor, whose tragic example only fell into the spotlight by accidental connection to a famous lawsuit (Bakke).

He readily conceded that he would never have been admitted to medical school under the normal standards, but maintained grades of 3.2 to 3.3 on a 4.0 scale.

After residency and earning a master's degree in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles, he moved to Compton and set up his practice in nearby Lynwood.

His professional difficulties began in 1993, at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, when he was accused of mishandling a delivery, and the hospital began monitoring him. He sued, charging racism. In a jury trial, he won $1.1 million in damages, but a judge overturned the verdict.

By 1997, he said he had delivered 10,000 children and performed thousands of abortions. About that time, he added liposuction to his practice.

His personal and professional life then took a further downturn. In 1997, The Associated Press found in court records that he had been sued 21 times for malpractice and had settled some suits with no admission of guilt. He declared bankruptcy and went through the second of two divorces.

In 1997, his license was suspended, for not paying child support, but he continued to practice. The medical board used that as one of more than 90 counts in revoking his license the next year. _NYT

Sure, you could find similar tragic stories from members of virtually any ethnic group, but such things are more likely to happen when the screening standards for a profession are allowed to drop for one reason or another.

There is no way to know whether a physician who is a member of an ethnic minority was accepted under lowered standards, at the level of medical school, residency, or as a professional hire. And it is that uncertainty which should concern anyone who is worried about the quality of care that he or his loved ones are likely to receive, should it be necessary.

In the age of Obamacare -- where more and more employers will be squeezed into dropping their health insurance plans, and where choice of personal physicians is beginning to evaporate away -- the uncertainty is likely to grow acutely worse over time.