Staff Reports
A growing number of frontline physicians are sounding the alarm as credentialing bodies quietly force them to formally pledge to “mitigate” so‑called implicit biases — language that reads less like medical guidance and more like political catechism. Dr. Jared L. Ross has publicly refused to sign such a pledge, arguing that the demand politicizes bedside care and compels doctors to change how they treat patients based on identity rather than medical need.
The American Board of Emergency Medicine and other specialty boards have folded diversity, equity, and inclusion directives into their new Codes of Professionalism, requiring certified physicians to attest they will combat implicit or explicit biases in clinical practice. What began as vague nods to fairness has become a mandatory confession box for clinicians who depend on board certification to practice in hospitals across the country.
Refuse the pledge and the practical consequences are severe: physicians risk restrictions on access to continuing education, review under professionalism rules, and even decertification that would make hospital work impossible. This is not abstract theory; doctors who push back say their careers are being placed on the line for refusing to parrot an ideology that judges individuals by group identity.
The outrage is not confined to opinion pieces — there are active legal fights over government mandates that compel implicit‑bias instruction in required continuing medical education, most prominently in California where physicians sued to block such rules as unconstitutional compelled speech. The courts are already wrestling with whether these mandates are government speech or an unlawful imposition on independent doctors, a fight that could reshape how far bureaucrats can reach into clinical rooms.
Emergency medicine doctors warn that injecting identity training into life‑and‑death care undermines split‑second decision making and sows distrust between patients and clinicians who show up to help. When seconds matter, what patients need is confidence in medical judgment, not cultural audits that tell clinicians to second‑guess themselves or treat people differently because of skin color.
This is about more than one pledge or one specialty board — it’s about preserving the doctor‑patient relationship and protecting free speech for professionals who took an oath to put patients first. Patriots who value liberty and common‑sense medicine should stand with courageous clinicians and demand that credentialing bodies stick to science and ethics, not woke orthodoxy imposed from on high.
