The Canadian Medical Association has rewritten its code of ethics to make social justice and anti-racism part of the professional duties of Canadian doctors.
The new code, which took effect Thursday, says that doctors are now expected to address “systemic issues” and reduce health inequities and disparities affecting “historically excluded and underserved populations” while promoting “social accountability.”
They must learn about the “history of colonization [that] continues today” and apply “culturally safe” and “trauma-informed” practices in their work, particularly during the treatment of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.
That means incorporating Indigenous knowledge systems, worldviews, medicine, and healing practices. Doctors should use an approach known as “two-eyed seeing,” meaning “valuing both Indigenous and Western ways of understanding health and medicine as equally important.”
Nothing in the documents says how this would apply to open-heart bypass surgery, for example.
Also new is that doctors are required to show a “commitment to justice”—in this case, social justice—whereas the previous 2004 version simply says “justice and accountability” are principles upon which the Code was built. Big difference.
The accompanying material delves into greater detail.
It defines racism as including concepts like unconscious bias, microaggressions, and even “treating another person’s knowledge and experiences as invalid.”
At the same time, doctors are expected to be “honest” and “forthright” and “respect the truth.”
Nothing in the code explains how to resolve the conflict between accepting one’s own personal and subjective truth and respecting objective truth, either.
Doctors are also told that some “racial groups have more power and opportunities than others”, and it’s therefore a doctor’s ethical duty to fight not just interpersonal bigotry but also “long-standing unfair systems in society that give some racial groups more power and opportunities than others.”
Of course, the bibliography includes texts on the increasingly debunked scholarship of critical race theory and intersectionality.
The previous code, adopted in 2004, already prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, sex, disability, political affiliation, and other characteristics. Even then, doctors were required to respect human rights law and promote equitable access to medical care.
The new version changes the scope of those duties entirely. Doctors are now expected to adopt a very specific kind of political theory to their clinical work and professional relationships.
Last year, the Canadian Nurses Association also updated its code of ethics, denouncing what they called the “white, European-centric” foundations of modern medicine. Their new code also compels nurses to adopt progressive political beliefs as part of their professional duties.
Their new code says that nurses must apply a “planetary health lens” to care and that nurses must consider the “interconnectedness between nature (e.g., human beings, plants, animal species and non-living entities)”, as well as recognize the “rights of nature and the planet.”
The unresolved question is what happens when doctors’ or nurses’ consciences, clinical judgment, or interpretation of the evidence conflicts with the associations’ new ideological expectations.
Are you kidding me?! This woke, DEI ideology affecting every aspect of our lives including our societal institutions has got to go in favour of common sense norms for all. A doctor’s oath is to do no harm. Government dictates sure wrecked that theory during COVID but I want a good doctor who knows their stuff, not one that checks woke, DEI boxes, but if you want to lose what few doctors and nurses are left, chasing them to other less discriminatory countries, keep it up……..
So, if you're white, and middle aged ... it's MAiD for YOU!