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Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review March 27, 2009 / 2 Nissan 5769

Medical apartheid

By Linda Chavez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | President Obama decided that the man he originally picked to head the civil rights division at the Justice Department, Thomas Saenz, was too controversial, so he's now turned to someone he hopes will have clearer sailing through the confirmation process. Earlier this month, the president nominated attorney Tom Perez as assistant attorney general for civil rights. Perez is currently the secretary of labor for Maryland and had previously worked in the civil rights division at Justice in the Clinton administration. The administration decided not to move forward with the Saenz nomination largely because of Saenz's efforts on behalf of illegal immigrants, which made him an easy target, but Perez also has some skeletons in his policy background that could prove troubling.


In 2006, Perez wrote a law review article for the University of Maryland's Journal of Health Care Law and Policy, in which he argued for explicit race-conscious admissions policies for medical school. He cited a handful of studies that purport to show that minority doctors are more likely to provide medical care to under-served poor minority populations than white physicians are. He then leapt to the conclusion that the best way to improve access to medical care for underserved populations was to insist that medical schools use race or ethnicity in choosing which students to admit.


In effect, Perez appears to be arguing for a form of medical apartheid in which minority patients should be served by minority doctors under the presumption that both groups benefit from this practice. The argument is both insulting and dangerous.


It is true that black and Hispanic doctors disproportionately serve patients on Medicare, Medicaid and other public health care programs, but it is a big leap to suggest that this practice should be encouraged or is, indeed, beneficial either to aspiring doctors or poor black and Hispanic patients. As other studies have shown, doctors who primarily treat patients enrolled in government programs are less likely than those with private insurance to have passed demanding board certification in their specialties and to have access to high-quality specialists in other fields. Under Perez's rationale, it shouldn't matter whether the doctors who serve poor people are less likely to be board-certified so long as they are black or brown.


And Perez's solution to the problem is to lower standards even further so that more under-qualified minority physicians are admitted to practice medicine. Medical schools already admit black and, to a lesser degree, Hispanic students with lower qualifications than whites or Asians. In 2001, my Center for Equal Opportunity published a study of admissions to the University of Maryland School of Medicine and found that the university admitted black students with much lower test scores and science GPAs than whites, Asians, or Hispanics.


As a result, black enrollees, on average, had much greater difficulty in medical school, maintaining only a 2.5 average in their first two years of medical school (compared with a 3.0 for Hispanics and 3.2 for whites and Asians). And they were less likely to pass medical licensing exams or to graduate than others. (CEO completed similar studies of medical school admissions at several other schools, which are available online at here.)


Perez's solution would exacerbate the problem of poor health services for minority patients, not improve it. Ironically, the modern era of affirmative action was ushered in by the famous Bakke Supreme Court decision in which a more qualified white medical school applicant sued the University of California at Davis Medical School because it denied his application, choosing instead a less qualified black student, Patrick Chavis.


For years, advocates of race-based admission argued that Chavis' service to poor and minority patients showed the wisdom of the university's decision. Those arguments proved both embarrassing and tragic in the late 1990s when the California Medical Board suspended Dr. Chavis' medical license, citing "inability to perform some of the most basic duties required of a physician" after several patients died or were severely injured in his care. Clearly, not every affirmative action medical school admittee will end up like Chavis, but admitting poorly qualified medical students increases the risk of producing incompetent physicians.


Race should never be the deciding factor in deciding who gets into medical school. President Obama has done a disservice to all of us by choosing a man to lead the Justice Department's civil rights division who thinks it should.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)

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© 2006, Creators Syndicate

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