Watchdog Group: DEI Training Is ‘Insulting’ to Health Care Workers

Implicit bias, microaggression courses contribute to 'stress and burnout'

Content from a microaggression training course at Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, obtained by Do No Harm, 2023. Courtesy of Do No Harm

A watchdog organization that monitors radical and divisive ideologies in medical institutions has obtained an internal document (pdf) from a Texas hospital showing a sizeable commitment to enforcing concepts which, the group says, stray from basic health care training.

Laura Morgan, program manager with Do No Harm (DNH), told The Epoch Times that the documents came from a Diversity, Equity  and Inclusion (DEI) training course for staff at Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas. The hospital is part of the Catholic, not-for-profit Providence Health & Services system that operates in Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Montana, Washington, and Alaska.

The documents push the assumption of implicit bias, she said: in this case, the presupposition that physicians make decisions about patients based on gender or skin color, leading to poor health outcomes.

“The people who promote this implicit bias, anti-racism training tell us our entire health care system is systematically racist, and that they have to root that out by training staff,” Morgan said.

‘This Is Insulting to Me’

Morgan is a registered nurse and 39-year veteran of the health care field. She was fired in February of 2022 for refusing to submit to training that required her to say she was racist. She said she often speaks with health care workers who have had to take training they call “insulting.”

“They say it’s insulting that they think this of them when they don’t even feel that way. That’s the sort of thing that contributes to an already ridiculous level of stress and burnout in our health care.”

According to Providence’s DEI training document, the health system has committed $50 million “to address health equity.”

The training also states that health equity extends to the “climate crisis.”

“The climate crisis cannot be solved without also responding to social and racial inequities,” Providence states on page three of the document. “We are committed to health equity, including environmental equity, as climate change impacts worsen, and disparities and inequities widen due to historical and structural causes of oppression.”

‘What Could Go Wrong?’

The document presents a definition for microaggression: “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group.”

It provides examples of microaggression through what it says are common derogatory statements toward gay, Hispanic, female, and foreign health care workers. The examples include “You don’t look gay” and “Are there any caregivers from America here?”

Morgan said one of the things that struck her was the training’s use of the Frederick Douglass quote, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Beneath that quote, she said, is the statement: “We are reprogramming our brain to pause and think differently about people and situations.”

“They want to reprogram the way health care providers think about people,” Morgan said. “What could go wrong?”

In response to a request for a statement, Providence issued this statement to The Epoch Times:

“As a faith-based not-for-profit health system, Covenant Health respects the dignity of all people. Covenant Health is dedicated to a Christian mission of healing by caring for the whole person–body, mind and spirit–and by working with others to improve health and quality of life in our communities. Our implicit bias training is intended to foster a culture in which every patient and employee is treated with compassion and respect, regardless of their age, religion, ethnicity, gender, or any other individual characteristic. Covenant Health follows all local, state and federal employment policies and is an equal opportunity employer.”

Federal Incentives

In 2021, President Joe Biden passed Executive Order 13985 on “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”

Following this, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued regulations for physicians to receive financial incentives through Medicare’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment System.

Within the CMS document (pdf) are instructions on how to “create and implement an anti-racism plan.”

“The plan should include a clinic-wide review of existing tools and policies, such as value statements or clinical practice guidelines, to ensure that they include and are aligned with a commitment to anti-racism and an understanding of race as a political and social construct, not a physiological one,” the document states.