Students at a top medical school are struggling with basic medical competency tests, and insiders are attributing this to affirmative action policies.
Some faculty members shared emails and other information with the Washington Free Beacon, revealing that the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) was admitting students based on race rather than merit. This practice has been illegal in California since 1996.
The alleged race-based admissions policies have resulted in a significant increase in the number of students failing basic standardized tests.
“I have students on their rotation who don’t know anything,” a member of the admissions committee told the Free Beacon. “People get in and they struggle.”
Those who spoke to the Free Beacon largely blamed Jennifer Lucero, who became the dean of admissions in 2020. In one instance, Lucero reportedly became angry with another admissions officer who questioned whether the school should admit a Black applicant whose grades and test scores were significantly below the school’s average, suggesting that the decision was based on race rather than merit.
“Did you not know African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else?” Lucero allegedly asked, adding that “we need people like this in the medical school.”
The outburst was concerning to admissions officials and prompted one of them to reach out to other committee members and wonder “if this applicant had been [a] white male, or [an] Asian female for that matter, [whether] we would have had that much discussion.”
Under Lucero’s management, the school’s ranking in U.S. News & World Report for medical research has plummeted from 6th to 18th place. Additionally, up to 50% of students are failing basic standardized tests in emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics. Significant percentages are also failing basic tests in neurology, obstetrics/gynecology, and surgery.
On a national level, just 5 percent of students, on average, fail each test.
Professors informed the Free Beacon that students are simply not prepared for the rigors of the school. One professor recounted an incident where a student in an operating room couldn’t identify a major artery when asked, and then berated the professor for posing the question in front of everyone. Another professor mentioned that students completing their clinical rotations lacked knowledge of basic lab tests.
“I don’t know how some of these students are going to be junior doctors,” the professor told the Free Beacon. “Faculty are seeing a shocking decline in knowledge of medical students.”
One admissions officer told the media that double standards in admissions are largely to blame.
“All the normal criteria for getting into medical school only apply to people of certain races,” an admissions officer said. “For other people, those criteria are completely disregarded.”
