Seattle Children’s Hospital is facing backlash after leaked training materials revealed doctors were segregated by race during a mandatory diversity workshop. The August 2022 session divided staff into “racial caucuses” and asked them to explore “repressed racial memories” and “race-consciousness.”
The training, required for all gastroenterology department employees, separated staff into three groups: White, black, and “non-black people of color.” Hospital officials claimed this was to “minimize harm to our black learners and facilitator.”
Each group had to complete a “racial identity development exercise” designed by diversity consultants, including Robin DiAngelo, author of “White Fragility.” White doctors were told to “divest” from their “Whiteness” and “unpack their racial stories.”
The four-workshop series was led by Roberto Montenegro, a child psychiatrist who openly uses a “social justice lens” in his work. Outside consultants were also brought in to run the training.
Stanley Goldfarb, founder of Do No Harm, criticized the sessions as “ideological indoctrination” with no evidence of improving healthcare. He warned they could “undermine the trust that all patients should have in their health care institutions.”
This incident highlights growing concerns about Critical Race Theory and diversity initiatives in medicine. Critics argue such programs threaten medical neutrality and the Hippocratic Oath by potentially teaching doctors to prioritize patients based on race.
