Any notion that medicine was immune to the culture shocks in our nation was destroyed by the intersection of the George Floyd response and COVID-era policy, writes ophthalmologist Jane Lindell Hughes, M.D., F.A.C.S., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Hughes serves as president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

“Those who deviated from dogmas on racism, vaccines, public health management, or virus origin risked personal, financial, and in some cases physical harm. The ‘mostly peaceful’ Black Lives Matter protests destroyed millions of dollars in property…. The powerful entities determining the COVID narrative threatened loss of licensure, good name, credibility, and means of livelihood to dissenters,” Dr. Hughes writes.

The response to these two events shows the changes occurring in our culture and long-held beliefs.

The views of the most affluent and influential one percent of the population differ greatly from those of ordinary Americans, Dr. Hughes notes. For example, 47 percent of the elite (vs. 16 percent of voters) think that Americans have too much freedom.

The emphasis on disparate impact with its demands for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is affecting standards in medicine, Dr. Hughes writes, while imposing onerous bureaucratic requirements and ceding more power to centralized agencies. COVID policy likewise transfers decision-making to designated experts to meet goals decided by remote entities, sometimes international ones.

The coupling of censorship of dissent and the setting of policy mandates by nonaccountable bureaucracy perpetuates ideas and actions representing cultural shifts the gravity of which needs to be understood by practicing physicians and the majority of the public.

“It is up to us to restore our rapidly crumbling cultural ideal of meritocracy coupled with equal opportunity,” she concludes.

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943.

Contact: Jane Lindell Hughes, M.D., janehughesmd@gmail.com, or Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail.com