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June 29, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — While ‘wokeness’ — social justice, critical race theory, anti-racism, Black Lives Matter, LGBT ideology and more — has infiltrated and taken root in the corporate world and at every level of national and local government, perhaps the most disturbing manifestation of this illiberal ideology is its presence in the medical field, where bigotry against conservatives and whites is gaining momentum.

The good-intentioned movement of businesses and governments toward diversity and inclusion, meant to correct past inequities, has become increasingly oppressive and tyrannical. Critical theory has become a monster, burning Democrat-run cities, inciting racial division, defunding and demoralizing police forces, and devouring the entire month of June, spewing out 30 days of endless garish rainbow vomitus

But nowhere is the danger greater and the stakes higher than in medicine, where trust has always been the bedrock of the doctor-patient relationship.

In a shocking new exposé, Bari Weiss’ colleague Katie Herzog has uncovered a cancer that is spreading in the world of medicine, asking, “What Happens When Doctors Can’t Tell the Truth?”  

“While the hyper focus on identity is seen by many proponents of social justice ideology as a necessary corrective to America’s past sins, some people working in medicine are deeply concerned by what ‘justice’ and ‘equity’ actually look like in practice,” wrote Herzog.

None of the doctors who spoke to Herzog were willing to have their names revealed for fear of retribution from the woke forces that are taking over the healthcare industry.

“Doctors say this ideology is stifling critical thinking and dissent in the name of progress,” explained Herzog. “They say that it’s turning students against their teachers and patients and racializing even the smallest interpersonal interactions. Most concerning, they insist that it is threatening the foundations of patient care, of research, and of medicine itself.”

“The people leading the woke effort have a deeply unsophisticated understanding of how change occurs in this country,” a doctor told Herzog. “It’s dangerous.”

While older clinicians have kept politics and personal beliefs outside their medical practices, “younger students and clinicians are more likely to prioritize activism. Those differences can be a major source of tension,” noted Herzog. “The sentiment that medical professionals need to put aside their feelings in service of treating patients seems increasingly old-fashioned.”

An ER doctor on the West Coast told Herzog that he’s watched younger healthcare providers use woke principles to choose which patients to work with.  “I’ve heard examples of Covid-19 cases in the emergency department where providers go, ‘I’m not going to go treat that white guy, I’m going to treat the person of color instead because whatever happened to the white guy, he probably deserves it.’”

One group, White Coats for Black Lives, “encourages medical students to make specific demands of their institutions, including that medical schools and hospitals end all relationships with local law enforcement.”  

“When asked what severing ties with police would do in his urban emergency room, one ER doctor said it would be a ‘total disaster,’” recounted Herzog. “Police, he told me, are a vital part of emergency operations, from securing crime scenes so emergency responders can see victims to helping transport patients to keeping hospital staff and patients safe when private security is inadequate.”

Herzog continued: 

I’ve heard from doctors who’ve been reported to their departments for criticizing residents for being late. (It was seen by their trainees as an act of racism.) I’ve heard from doctors who’ve stopped giving trainees honest feedback for fear of retaliation. I’ve spoken to those who have seen clinicians and residents refuse to treat patients based on their race or their perceived conservative politics. 

Some of these doctors say that there is a “purge” underway in the world of American medicine: question the current orthodoxy and you will be pushed out. They are so worried about the dangers of speaking out about their concerns that they will not let me identify them except by the region of the country where they work. 

“I’m into efforts to make medicine more diverse,” another doctor told Herzog. “But what’s gone off the rails here is that there is an intolerance of people that have another point of view. And that’s going to hurt us all.”

“The intellectual foundation for this movement is the Marxist view of the world, but stripped of economics and replaced with race determinism,” explained a psychologist.

“Wokeness feels like an existential threat,” said yet another doctor. “In health care, innovation depends on open, objective inquiry into complex problems, but that’s now undermined by this simplistic and racialized worldview where racism is seen as the cause of all disparities, despite robust data showing it’s not that simple.”

“Whole research areas are off-limits,” he said, adding that some of what is being published in the nation’s top journals is “shoddy as hell.”  

A psychologist who spoke to Herzog called the new orthodoxy “a ‘moral panic’ and ‘symbolic crusade,’ like Prohibition, in which the outcome is less important than the sacredness of the movement.”

“What happens with symbolic crusades is they overreach and you get a tremendous backlash,” he continued. “If hospitals actually adopt a policy of what can be construed as favoring black people in the ICU, can you imagine what conservative media would do with that? It would play into every fear that what this is really about is suppressing liberty, chilling free speech. I didn’t used to think those fears were legitimate. Now I do. I get it.”

Read Katie Herzog’s excellent exposé here.

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Doug Mainwaring is a journalist for LifeSiteNews, an author, and a marriage, family and children's rights activist.  He has testified before the United States Congress and state legislative bodies, originated and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court, and has been a guest on numerous TV and radio programs.  Doug and his family live in the Washington, DC suburbs.