AMA releases document on appropriate language and health equity

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It's nice to see that no matter how close we get to a "Rome is Burning" moment in medicine we will have someone to collect money and stand in the flames screaming at the top of their lungs about capitalizing and not capitalizing certain words instead of putting out the fire that would in turn allow them to have a larger voice and for a longer duration. Forget the politics of the document. That is honestly the red herring distracting from the main lesson of this document. This is just plain stupid prioritization for an organization not tasked with a woke mission. No wonder they are hemorrhaging members every year. The AMA should step up and do their job before worrying about their extra credit assignment.
 
It's nice to see that no matter how close we get to a "Rome is Burning" moment in medicine we will have someone to collect money and stand in the flames screaming at the top of their lungs about capitalizing and not capitalizing certain words instead of putting out the fire that would in turn allow them to have a larger voice and for a longer duration. Forget the politics of the document. That is honestly the red herring distracting from the main lesson of this document. This is just plain stupid prioritization for an organization not tasked with a woke mission. No wonder they are hemorrhaging members every year. The AMA should step up and do their job before worrying about their extra credit assignment.
The AMA doesn't care to lobby for physicians
 
The AMA doesn't care to lobby for physicians
And so it follows that the AMA should not exist. It can't even fulfill it's actual mission and yet it has the audacity to ask for money and blow up inboxes with this. If I wanted to read this type of stuff I would do so by reading the emails I get from my political donations which would be at least appropriate and using my money for what I donated it to achieve. Medicine is its own worst enemy. It's filled with cut off the nose to spite the face people that worst of all don't even realize it.

Reading this thread was infuriating because it was hook line and sinker arguing about stupid stuff instead of recognizing we have a real problem here.
 
Black, white, yellow, red I see are now outlawed and we don't want to hurt feelings so they need to start changing colors in hospitals nowadays to not make these new physicians scared or hurt. I hope they don't ban Navy Blue next because that is my favorite color.

I've said this before on here. If you can't mentally take the trauma of hearing a word like "whitelist" then how can someone count on your to perform in healthcare in a moment of real life crisis?
 
For those of you in medical school, residency or academia the AMA routinely sends membership invoices to practice managers hoping they will just treat it as another bill and send in the money even though the physicians have never been members

Because, of course, why wouldn't any physician want to be an AMA member???
 
Black, white, yellow, red I see are now outlawed and we don't want to hurt feelings so they need to start changing colors in hospitals nowadays to not make these new physicians scared or hurt.
Your statement is doubleplusgood
 
And so it follows that the AMA should not exist. It can't even fulfill it's actual mission and yet it has the audacity to ask for money and blow up inboxes with this. If I wanted to read this type of stuff I would do so by reading the emails I get from my political donations which would be at least appropriate and using my money for what I donated it to achieve. Medicine is its own worst enemy. It's filled with cut off the nose to spite the face people that worst of all don't even realize it.

Reading this thread was infuriating because it was hook line and sinker arguing about stupid stuff instead of recognizing we have a real problem here.
I don't disagree. The AMA document authors knew what they were doing by writing that and would be happy to see the profession self destructing into deep polarizing arguments and divides. The AMA is fundamentally against the interests of physicians and i won't mind if the AMA no longer exists
 
Black, white, yellow, red I see are now outlawed and we don't want to hurt feelings so they need to start changing colors in hospitals nowadays to not make these new physicians scared or hurt. I hope they don't ban Navy Blue next because that is my favorite color.

I've said this before on here. If you can't mentally take the trauma of hearing a word like "whitelist" then how can someone count on your to perform in healthcare in a moment of real life crisis?
I think the idea is patients being dehumanized and offended by whitelist/blacklist and not the doctors
 
I'd love to ask any of these social justice warriors on SDN why they didn't turn down their medical school acceptance in favor of a more disadvantaged applicant

For everyone in med school, there were at least 3 or 4 persons experiencing rejection and no one accounts for their oppression
 
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That was precisely why I asked you to clarify who is being alienated. You don’t say “white people”, or “older (traditional) people”, you say republicans…Which I think you make clear that anything that mentions a demographic identity is politics, and that by nature it alienated republicans. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but I would not think all republicans are alienated by racial equity. If they are then the logical conclusion would be the party is formed and based on maintaining racial status quo aka racial inequity.

Naive or not… I would hope no legitimate republican takes that position. Polarization has made political affiliations into the most ridiculous ideologies. It’s strange to see. As an immigrant from a multi-party system it’s honestly dumbfounding.

Recently, liberals have been making all of their arguments in terms of "X equity." Gender, sex, race, SES, etc. Then, when anyone disagrees with that stance, the counterargument from liberals is inevitably, "why do you hate blacks/asians/women/transgenders/low SES/etc.?" All you are doing is redrawing the line about what is or is not acceptable discourse in order to advance your own political agenda by shrouding it the veneer of "equity."
If you can't see why the AMA, the supposed physicians' trade group, putting out a paper calling for the end of using 'white list' and 'black list' as polarizing to its potential members, I will not be able to explain it to you. All the while the AMA is tilting at windmills, physicians are losing the legislative battles that affect our profession - mid level encroachment, declining reimbursement, etc.
 
I'd love to ask any of these social justice warriors on SDN why they didn't turn down their medical school acceptance in favor of a more disadvantaged applicant

For everyone in med school, there were at least 3 or 4 persons experiencing rejection and no one accounts for their oppression
Because it's easier to stan on the internet than to put their money where their mouth is.
 
@WhittyPsyche thinking about this more, i still believe the underlying problem in all this is using white as the gold standard for decision making and ideal societal marker for excellence/beauty etc and basically dismissing/ignoring nonwhites with damaging consequences. Changing the language to avoid words like whitelisting/blacklisting only addresses one symptom of the issue that's likely to backfire.
 
But it's pretty clear that the AMA doesn't care about physicians in the slightest. Instead of forming a unified front against midlevel organizations and private equity, the AMA decides to divide physicians
 
If the AMA is fully onboard with all of these "social justice" talking points, wouldn't that also mean that all of their memberships and corporate assets that were paid for historically by white male physicians were ill-gotten and should be returned to any and all oppressed persons?
 
Good points all around. I'd like to just address some of the questions directed at me in the beginning and clarify a couple things.

As I alluded to originally, though perhaps not in the most direct terms, I don't have a problem with language changing if it stems from a widespread desire arising in some organic fashion. If many diabetic patients have an issue with being called diabetic, I have no issue with changing the terminology. I personally have not witnessed this, just because where I live diabetes is incredibly common (and runs on both sides of my family), so there's little stigma with having it. I could see why this wouldn't be the case in pediatric settings, as one commenter pointed out. What I do mind is some large organization dictating what other people should or shouldn't consider offensive. Words derive meaning through their use. It's not enough for a word to theoretically cause offense based on its roots, it matters if people using the language actually find it troubling. And I've yet to see anybody find, for example, the term "black" offensive (as opposed to Black), or whitelist/blacklist. Even so, I doubt changing the problematic terminology would prove useful in the long run, because its problematic nature stems from the stigma attached to the underlying meaning of the word, not the word itself. Consider the evolution of crippled->handicapped->disabled->person with x disability. The problematic aspect of the words stem from the stigma surrounding being disabled. If that stigma remains, changing the word will not magically erase the stigma. You can bet that in the future, "person with x disability" will be considered offensive too.

On the question posed earlier about whether I'm black - no I'm not black. But I also reject the idea that somehow my argument is less valid because of my skin color. The founding principles of this country, ie liberalism+democracy, require people to be capable of reasoned debate to hash out differences in the quest to solve problems. The current narrative in social justice literature seems to be that there can be no understanding or reasoning between certain groups (racial, gender, etc), due to irreconcilable differences in experience. Because my experience as a white person invalidates my perspective, debate is rendered impossible. Policy just becomes a game of groups necessarily exerting power over each other (ex the idea that there can't be "race-neutral" policy, only racist or anti-racist policy). This is a dangerous line of reasoning and seems incompatible with the underlying liberal principles of our society.
 
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Honestly, I'd like to fry most of this thread but I don't because there will be too much howling at the moon if I do. But, just to get things back on track, it is unacceptable to inquire about someone's race/gender/sex/creed/religion/etc in the context of implying that it in some way diminishes or validates their opinion. Presuppositions based on identity don't contribute in any meaningful way to the conversation and thus will be deemed automatically inflammatory and dealt with as such.
 
Very few physicians listen to the AMA. What is membership? Maybe 20% of all MD's and most are academics (sorry, practicing in academia).
 
It's racializing the words that didn't otherwise have a racial meaning. There's gray too, which doesn't have a clear racial equivalent. The idea behind this is just a gradient based on a grayscale. The key to reducing implicit bias is to learn to stop following through the stereotypes and treating people like individuals. There's a much bigger problem that needs to be addressed of subconsciously viewing a Black person as bad just by looking at them that imo has little to do with the ordinary uses of the words black and white and more to do with the long standing negative societal portrayal of Black people. That requires changes deeper than trying to redefine/replacing words
I agree completely, but your reasoning is too "rational." It's a lot easier to just decree different language than to address the root of the problem. Another question is also whether using certain language affects our worldview, i.e. the old Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I have my doubts.
 
A rose by any other name is still a rose. Diabetic = a person with diabetes (except when the "person" identifies as a cat or some other animal but that's another topic). Everyone knows this. And how long before "person with diabetes" become dehumanizing?

How is it that words that never were used to stigmatize or dehumanize somehow become so? Words that have absolutely nothing to do with race become racist? Clearly, we are becoming overly sensitized either because we want to virtue signal or are obsessively looking for real and imaginary evidence to perpetuate victimhood.

The medical profession's objective is to heal. IMO these trends actually do the opposite at a societal level. This redefining of words' intent has made us all racists & dehumanizers and now we must atone for our past sins. If we object or somehow are unaware of these new rules and break them we must be punished. Whether we agree with this or not, we should recognize that a large segment of our population does not look upon this favorably. It inflames them as well as the "victims" it intends to help. In other words, it adds fuel to the fire by signaling that there's racism everywhere.
 
The far left agenda and wokeness explained so brilliantly:

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984
 
How is it that words that never were used to stigmatize or dehumanize somehow become so?
That's how language works. *****, imbecile, and idiot were clinical terms before they became insults. Then ******ed replaced them but has too become unusable clinically. (As expected, some of these once clinical terms are actually now censored on this site, just proving my point about language evolution.)

Languages evolve constantly, and it's not too difficult to adapt periodically in order to respect others. That's not redefining words or their intent, it's noticing how the use and impact of words change naturally.

As you said, our job is to heal. Treating our patients with respect seems like a prerequisite for that healing.
 
That's how language works. *****, imbecile, and idiot were clinical terms before they became insults. Then ******ed replaced them but has too become unusable clinically. (As expected, some of these once clinical terms are actually now censored on this site, just proving my point about language evolution.)

Languages evolve constantly, and it's not too difficult to adapt periodically in order to respect others. That's not redefining words or their intent, it's noticing how the use and impact of words change naturally.

As you said, our job is to heal. Treating our patients with respect seems like a prerequisite for that healing.
Key word in my sentence you quoted is "never". It's news to me that diabetic has become an insult. Please correct me if I'm wrong. The point I was making is people are saying they are offensive to satisfy their own motives which is causing more harm than good as a society. It didn't take long for "challenged" and "triggered" to become memes. Whether you agree or not, a sizable segment of our population mocks this kind of stuff and doesn't respect the people & organizations who engage in it. And worse, it reminds many of the types of people in an Orwellian dystopia and they worry this is where we are headed.
 
That's how language works. *****, imbecile, and idiot were clinical terms before they became insults. Then ******ed replaced them but has too become unusable clinically. (As expected, some of these once clinical terms are actually now censored on this site, just proving my point about language evolution.)

Languages evolve constantly, and it's not too difficult to adapt periodically in order to respect others. That's not redefining words or their intent, it's noticing how the use and impact of words change naturally.

As you said, our job is to heal. Treating our patients with respect seems like a prerequisite for that healing.
Hence my question on who exactly has been offended by the words blacklist/whitelist. The discussion has been largely/entirely hypothetical and i have yet to see concrete examples of people actually upset by this in clinical settings. If these words carry the controversial stigma like ***** and ******, the words should be replaced.
 
Key word in my sentence you quoted is "never". It's news to me that diabetic has become an insult. Please correct me if I'm wrong. The point I was making is people are saying they are offensive to satisfy their own motives which is causing more harm than good as a society. It didn't take long for "challenged" and "triggered" to become memes. Whether you agree or not, a sizable segment of our population mocks this kind of stuff and doesn't respect the people & organizations who engage in it. And worse, it reminds many of the types of people in an Orwellian dystopia and they worry this is where we are headed.
It's been shown very directly that terms like diabetic and asthmatic reduce people only to their disease states and patients/families hate being addressed as such. This is pervasive enough that dropping these terms entirely would be better.

The AMA made a right call suggesting this replacement. Where they went wrong is extending that into an absurd political rant that reads like a poor recreation of Marx's manifesto in an attempt to divide the physicians they claim to represent.
 
Hence my question on who exactly has been offended by the words blacklist/whitelist. The discussion has been largely/entirely hypothetical and i have yet to see concrete examples of people actually upset by this in clinical settings. If these words carry the controversial stigma like ***** and ******, the words should be replaced.
There always seems to be a small but vocal (and sometimes disruptive) group that will take the cue and declare they are offended by these newly discovered racist terms and corporate America & most of our institutions will heed. Just give it time.
 
It's been shown very directly that terms like diabetic and asthmatic reduce people only to their disease states and patients/families hate being addressed as such. This is pervasive enough that dropping these terms entirely would be better.

The AMA made a right call suggesting this replacement. Where they went wrong is extending that into an absurd political rant that reads like a poor recreation of Marx's manifesto in an attempt to divide the physicians they claim to represent.
I'm skeptical that "person with diabetes" will make them feel any better. It wouldn't matter 1 bit to me, but I realize not everyone is like me. Those of us with chronic conditions are constantly reminded of it. The words used to describe it are nothing compared to dealing with the condition. The disease is what is reducing me and my lifestyle, not the words. Changing the terms almost seems patronizing. I want real help from medical professionals not new words.
 
I'm skeptical that "person with diabetes" will make them feel any better. It wouldn't matter 1 bit to me, but I realize not everyone is like me. Those of us with chronic conditions are constantly reminded of it. The words used to describe it are nothing compared to dealing with the condition. The disease is what is reducing me and my lifestyle, not the words. Changing the terms almost seems patronizing. I want real help from medical professionals not new words.
Sadly i don't think the AMA actually cares about that
 
The sheer irony of people in this thread saying that how we describe people and situations doesn’t matter while simultaneously arguing that calling physicians “providers” is a harbringer of doom really gets me, because it’s not like they think words don’t have power, they just don’t care about marginalized people.
 
Different people have different needs.

If I walked into some of my patient's rooms and used "flowery" language:
"This is a 58 year old cis het male-presenting person experiencing a non-ketotic hyperosmolar episode punctuating his long-time, brave struggle with the disease experience known as diabetes..."
Frank the plumber will look at me like I'm insane and will never be comfortable with me.

If I walk into his room and say:
"This is Frank, 55yom. He's a Tom Brady fan but I promised we wouldn't hold it against him. He's diabetic in HHNK right now..."
He likely will smile and like me.

But the next patient may need a much gentler approach with a lot more PC language.
The key is getting to know the patients, treat them all with respect and dignity, and let them know that if you make a mistake it comes from simple human error and not any sort of negativity in your heart.

The studies show that the physicians who establish those connections with patients (IE in ways that patients need, which is NOT cookie cutter) get sued less. Probably safe to say they have good outcomes and all that, too.

It costs me nothing to call someone a "they" if it makes them happy...
 
Cooked snails vs escargot.
ChairMAN vs Chairperson.
Polish vs Person from Poland.
Patient refused vs patient declined

There’s an interview with Mohammad Ali where he talks about how bad things are black - Blackmail, black sheep, devil’s food cake.

Words matter.

When I get a new pt I try to say “We have high blood pressure, …” to show them its a team.

Similarly, having lived in 6 different countries, if I see a name that may be from there, I don’t ask “Where are YOU from” but rather “Where is that name from”

I’ve had people ask me where I’m from and depending on who it is, it can be a “which country did you originally come from” which usually has not so nice undertones, or a which part of US are you from, which usually does not… unless they hate “my” football team.

AMA can be a poop organisation but still be (somewhat) correct in this particular area.
 
One thing to consider is that things like the language you use might impact what patients tell you. For example, a lot of LGBTQ + folks (including me), take cues from how physicians and nurses word things, the signage around the office, the paperwork, etc, to decide whether it’s “safe” to be honest about sexual orientation or gender identity with that person, because there still are a ton of homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, physicians out there, and marginalized patients are acutely aware of that when seeking and receiving care.
 
The sheer irony of people in this thread saying that how we describe people and situations doesn’t matter while simultaneously arguing that calling physicians “providers” is a harbringer of doom really gets me, because it’s not like they think words don’t have power, they just don’t care about marginalized people.

Lol what is this. NPs pretending to be physicians have killed patients but yeah clearly words like “diabetic” are the problem.
 
The sheer irony of people in this thread saying that how we describe people and situations doesn’t matter while simultaneously arguing that calling physicians “providers” is a harbringer of doom really gets me, because it’s not like they think words don’t have power, they just don’t care about marginalized people.
I think that's two different situations. The first is adding underlying negative connotations to words that didn't have prior connotations. The second is actively replacing a word to devalue the profession entirely.

People objecting to replacing the word diabetic with person of diabetes will oppose to replacing physician with provider
 
Table 5: Contrasting Conventional (Well-intentioned) Phrasing with Equity-focused Language that Acknowledges Root Causes of Inequities

Conventional

Low-income people have the highest level of coronary artery disease in the United States.

Revision

People underpaid and forced into poverty as a result of banking policies, real estate developers gentrifying neighborhoods, and corporations weakening the power of labor movements, among others, have the highest level of coronary artery disease in the United States.
 
If the AMA and medical education leaders actually care about healthcare disparities and low SES/racial barriers, they wouldn't be actively encouraging and promoting legacy admissions (with classes regularly being filled with med students from upper class and physician backgrounds), and add crushing amounts of debt that takes a long time to pay off and compromises standard of living for few years. They wouldn't be so atrocious in addressing burnout and stigmatizing mental health problems that's pervasive in the profession while subjecting students and trainees to the worst discrimination-filled abuses in clinical years onwards while allowing for little to no time off and expecting them to miss important personal events.

There's a huge rot in the medical profession that's actively worsening on a daily basis, and the AMA is only interested in insincerely virtue signaling on serious social matters rather than resolving the underlying problems

The AMA is a disgrace
 
Who decides what is offensive and what isnt? I don't understand how we decide what terms are offensive and what aren't since not everyone thinks the exact same way? The argument that were using offensive terms is offensive because it implies that people who find certain terms not offensive are uneducated and need to realign their thinking with someone who probably arbitrarily made a decision of what is/isnt offensive.
 
My residency has decided that the term "black cloud" to describe an unlucky resident is racist and have banned us from using it. Here I thought it referred to the weather, as in black clouds bring rain while white clouds don't. I guess I'm a closeted white supremist instead ....
 
To me, there are two things that are simultaneously true. On the one hand, I do think that we should stop using language that identifies people with their diseases. That’s clearly going to make people feel ****ty, and it’s not really helpful. At the same time, it’s always concerning to me when groups make it a focus to regulate language. That is very uncomfortable and reminiscent of some historically horrible, totalitarian regimes.

I think it’s fine to suggest that people use certain terms in professional contexts, but if the AMA started sanctioning members or something based on their non adherence to these recommendations, I would strongly object to that.
 
To me, there are two things that are simultaneously true. On the one hand, I do think that we should stop using language that identifies people with their diseases. That’s clearly going to make people feel ****ty, and it’s not really helpful. At the same time, it’s always concerning to me when groups make it a focus to regulate language. That is very uncomfortable and reminiscent of some historically horrible, totalitarian regimes.

I think it’s fine to suggest that people use certain terms in professional contexts, but if the AMA started sanctioning members or something based on their non adherence to these recommendations, I would strongly object to that.
Can't be sanctioned if you're never a member 😉
 
Hence my question on who exactly has been offended by the words blacklist/whitelist. The discussion has been largely/entirely hypothetical and i have yet to see concrete examples of people actually upset by this in clinical settings. If these words carry the controversial stigma like ***** and ******, the words should be replaced.
DudeI cannot see why you don't understand what makes blacklist and whitelist a problem. Who ever decided white should always stand for good and black for bad? Do you not see how this could come to be an issue for a society that labels people as black and white?
 
My residency has decided that the term "black cloud" to describe an unlucky resident is racist and have banned us from using it. Here I thought it referred to the weather, as in black clouds bring rain while white clouds don't. I guess I'm a closeted white supremist instead ....
Why not use dark cloud? Or rain cloud? Storm cloud?

It's difficult but not impossible for me to support cumbersome language changes, but the above seems minor and easy enough while still preserving meaning.
 
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