Forget anatomy or physiology: Many of the medical students returning to the classroom this month are taking courses that focus more on social justice and diversity.

That’s my conclusion in a new study that analyzes curricula at medical schools across the country.

Future doctors are spending more time on divisive political topics and less time on the medical science on which individual and public health depend—a fact that should horrify policymakers and patients alike.

My study—the first to document the prevalence of ideology in medical school curricula—focuses on schools’ publicly available course catalogs.

Using the US News and World Report rankings, I started with the highest ranked institutions in the country, and then worked my way down the list.

While many institutions do not disclose their courses, the top 20 that publicly list their courses show how political ideology is replacing traditional medical education.

I looked for how often specific keywords appear in each catalog’s courses, a widely used research technique known as “content analysis.”

Specifically, I looked for the use of eight politicized words and eight scientific or medical terms directly related to medical education.

Think “race/racism” and “equality” compared to “chemistry” and “physiology”.

All told, in the course catalogs I analyzed, politicized words appeared more than 2,400 times—while scientific and medical terms appeared about 1,900 times.

In the top 10 medical schools with publicly accessible course catalogs, including top-ranked Harvard Medical School, only those at Duke University and the University of Washington lean more science than politics, though not by much difference.

At Stanford Medical School, ideological terms appeared more than twice just as often as scientific ones—and a look at specific Stanford courses makes it clear how things have gone wrong.

Stanford offers a course called “Global Leaders and Innovators in Human and Planetary Health” that focuses on “environmental sustainability” and “social and environmental justice and equity.”

In contrast, the word “obesity” does not appear once in Stanford’s course catalog, even though it represents one of the greatest challenges to American health.

Baylor College of Medicine in Texas offers a course on “Human Rights and Medicine” covering “immigration reform,” “use of torture,” “gender issues,” and “distributive justice issues affected by militarization in society.”

Judging by his catalog’s complete absence of words commonly used in medical research, such as “random” and “placebo,” teaching medical students how to interpret—let alone perform—research seems not is Baylor’s advantage.

Even courses with titles that appear to cover traditional medical topics are infected by ideology, according to their descriptions.

For example, Harvard Medical School offers “Integrated Human Pathophysiology” – which somehow includes topics such as “health equity” and “climate change”.

The Icahn School of Medicine catalog lists “Introduction to Anesthesiology,” which despite its title is described as “an essential component of the Human Rights and Social Justice Scholars program” that “is intended to provide students with a space for building critical thinking and community around social justice work.”

It is unclear whether students also learn how to administer anesthesia.

The degree to which ideological goals are eclipsing scientific ones extends far beyond the top-ranked medical schools.

In 2022, the Association of American Medical Colleges issued credentials that effectively control what all these institutions teach.

The list of topics medical students must master includes everything from “intersectionality” to “colonization” to “systems of power, privilege and oppression.”

While non-elite schools tend to have less politicized language today, that is sure to change over time: Activists dictating the medical curriculum are demanding more radicalism.

However, de-emphasizing medical education will inevitably create a physician quality crisis that is already closer than Americans realize.

UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine, which does not publicly detail its curricula, is already known for infusing divisive politics into its courses.

According to internal documents shared with the Washington Free Beacon, the percentage of UCLA students failing frequent “standardized exams” has increased, with more than half in the past few years failing routine tests in emergency medicine, pediatrics and other critical areas.

Such is the predictable result of medical school curricula that talk about racism and diversity more than randomized controlled trials.

Then again, the activists behind this troubling trend are conducting a test of their own—namely, what will happen to Americans’ health when untrained doctors try to treat them.

Jay P. Greene is a Senior Fellow at Do No Harm.