DEI Could Make Surgery Dangerous - A Veteran Surgeon Speaks Out

The egregious lunacy that is "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion," or DEI, seems to be fading slowly away. That's as it should be; decisions as to who should hold a certain job or be admitted to a certain school should be based on merit, not on skin color or any other arbitrary nonsense. But the effects of this practice will be felt for some time, and in many fields, this is a pig that will be some time passing through the python.

One such field is surgery. Richard T. Bosshardt, a practicing surgeon with 38 years of experience, has some comments on the young surgeons he sees coming out of residencies in recent years, and it's truly alarming.

I have been a surgeon for 38 years. Three of those I spent as a general surgeon in the Navy, the remainder as a plastic surgeon in private practice. I have never been more alarmed about the state of my profession than I am today.
My concerns began surfacing about 25 years ago. I was collaborating with a newly trained general surgeon on a bilateral breast reconstruction, a procedure that utilizes tissue flaps from the patient’s abdomen. This is a significant and lengthy operation, and I appreciated the young surgeon’s offer to close the abdominal donor site. To my horror, however, he began taking excessively wide needle “bites” of the abdominal wall using a heavy-gauge suture, visibly distorting the abdominal wall as he pulled these sutures tight. After watching in disbelief for a few minutes, I thanked him and said that I could manage without help. The young surgeon subsequently gained a reputation for handling tissues roughly and for being difficult to work with. It came as no surprise when he left our hospital after less than a year.

So, this isn't a new phenomenon. Dr. Bosshardt describes several troubling developments he's personally seen and that have been related to him by colleagues, including increased amounts of time taken performing surgeries; this is a problem because it prolongs times under anesthetic, as well as prolonging stress on the body's systems. He also describes an increase in post-operative complications, which can be aggravated by increased surgery times as well as by problems from the surgery itself.

But here's where DEI comes in:

Another reason why the quality of surgeons and of surgery has declined: DEI in our medical and educational institutions. I have spoken to program directors in residency programs who say that they are afraid to correct, hold back, or drop underperforming minority trainees for fear of being reprimanded, accused of bias, or even losing their jobs.
The American College of Surgeons continues to push DEI initiatives, ignoring or censoring anyone who disagrees. For example, ACS has implemented remedial training for graduate surgeons through “mentorship” programs. One challenge: finding enough experienced surgeons of the correct ethnic, racial, or gender identity to serve as mentors.
A surgeon who successfully completed a full residency was once expected to practice independently without supervision. Increasingly, this is no longer the case. I worry for the future of my profession—and even for myself, on the day that I enter the world of surgery as a patient.

When you lower standards for favored groups, you get lowered skill levels and lowered capabilities. In many fields, that's annoying. In surgery, indeed in any area of healthcare provision, it's life-threatening.

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There's another problem, and that's the effect it ends up having on any number of perfectly capable and qualified surgeons and other healthcare providers who happen to be of the same identifiable group as the people pushed through under DEI programs. Case in point: Dr. Ben Carson, the former HUD chief who is also a brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon and who happens to be black. It would be unfair in the extreme to presume he's a DEI hire and, therefore, less competent than other doctors of other ethnicities, but that could well be the effect that dozens or hundreds of subpar surgeons pushed into practice under DEI programs could have.

DEI programs are unfair to the competent. They deserve to be wiped away from healthcare, from government, and from any field of endeavor that relies on competence. Ability and merit should be the only deciding factors in hiring/staffing positions, as well as in academics. Dr. Bosshardt's experience, however, is especially troubling. He indicates this practice, resulting in a noticeable decline in the surgical skills of practitioners, has been going on for some time, and given the career lifespan of a surgeon, may be in evidence for some time to come.