Claiming it violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, a group of California doctors are challenging a state law requiring physicians to confess they are racist to have their medical certification renewed.
“Dr. Azadeh Khatibi, Dr. Marilyn Singleton, and the nonprofit Do No Harm filed a lawsuit challenging California's mandatory implicit bias training for physicians,” the Pacific Legal Foundation, who is representing the plaintiffs, reports.
“All California physicians must log 50 CME hours every two years; however, by mandating controversial implicit bias training, California forces physician educators to espouse views favored by the government in violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech,” PLF explains in a statement.
“In 2019, California lawmakers passed a new mandate, AB 241, requiring all continuing medical education (CME) courses involving direct patient care to include implicit bias training — regardless of who teaches the course or what is taught. The efficacy of these trainings is not supported by evidence and instead promotes distrust and resentment in medical care,” PLF reports.
Doctors and PLF attorneys report the mandate is unconstitutional and harms medical care.
“Physicians should base medical care on each patient's individual situation and condition,” said Caleb Trotter, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “Implicit bias training does the opposite, telling doctors they should be concerned about a patient's immutable characteristics like race, gender, and sexual orientation, regardless of the characteristics' relevance to the patient's treatment.”
“Physicians have free will and act in the best interest of their patients,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Do No Harm Chairman. “The idea of unconscious bias states that one acts on those biases, and there's no evidence of this happening in the medical community. Medical professionals take the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, and do not need lawmakers or medical organizations to tell them what they should think when providing medical advice to patients.”
“The implicit bias requirement promotes the inaccurate belief that white individuals are naturally racist,” said Dr. Marilyn Singleton, a visiting fellow of the Do No Harm organization and California anesthesiologist who teaches continuing medical education courses in California. “This message can be detrimental to medical professionals and their patients as it creates an atmosphere of suspicion and animosity, which goes against the fundamental principle of doing no harm.”
The case is Azadeh Khatibi, et al. v. Kristina Lawson, et. al, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Absolutely ridiculous requirement. Doctors are being accused of racism with no complaints or reports to show they are racist. They are being found guilty with no proof. If I have a dozen black or brown friends and I do not like one I am considered a racist. On the other hand a black person who hates all whites is not considered racist. Sorry but racism is not a one way street … blacks can be racist.
There’s always job openings in the other 49 states for qualified physicians.
California doctors……… HINT. HINT.
Not everyone in California is an idiot. We need DOCTORS in California. They don’t need hints at where to find them; they are already leaving the state in droves.
When a government is infiltrated or planted with special interest groups and extremists are put in a position of authority, the result is a contradiction to the majority public’s norm and a form of dictatorship results. The intent is an effort towards conversion to a socialist form of government by intimidation to conform . The minions that support the extremist party have not the ability to comprehend or foresee the negative consequences it will bring down on ‘all’ Americans.
Ah, the Molden State.
Guilty until proven innocent. EXACTLY what our Constitution and Bill of Rights were created to PROTECT us. These liberal “progressive” idiotic politicians seem to get crazier by the hour.