Medical training accreditor ends DEI policies, closes department

By Dan McCaleb
The Center Square

The group that accredits graduate level medical training programs across the U.S. has closed its diversity, equity and inclusion office and ended its DEI mandates.

In an internal email to partners obtained by Do No Harm and shared with The Center Square, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education said recent executive orders from President Donald Trump prompted the change in policy.

“For nearly half a century, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has upheld its mission to ensure high-quality education and training for resident and fellow physicians across the US by implementing and evaluating compliance with peer-review standards,” the email said. “Our commitment to advancing excellence in medical education and training remains steadfast and as we adapt to evolving national priorities. …

“Recent federal directives, including executive orders and a proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have prohibited accrediting bodies from requiring or otherwise encouraging a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). …

“In alignment with these federal directives, the ACGME has taken several actions, including retiring DEI-specific accreditation requirements, updating the organization’s relevant policies and procedures, and closing the Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.”

That includes taking down its diversity webpage.

In response, Do No Harm, an organization of “physicians, nurses, medical students, patients, and policymakers focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice,” said identity politics don’t belong in health care.

“For too long, accreditors like the ACGME have gotten away with injecting identity politics into medical education. Now that they’re finally removing DEI mandates – after much scrutiny and pressure – the ACGME is taking an important step toward realigning its standards with common sense, meritocratic metrics,” Stanley Goldfarb, MD, chairman of Do No Harm, said in a statement. “That’s why it’s so important that organizations like ours, along with elected officials and all medical professionals, continue speaking out and holding these institutions accountable for racialized standards and quotas in medicine.”