Isolated: Letters To And From The American College of Surgeons

Below is the exchange of correspondence between me and the Chair of the Central Judiciary Committee of the ACS, Dr. Douglas Wood, regarding my permanent ban. You be the judge.

“Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether a society will be a free society or a fear society.” Natan Sharansky

In April 2022, I was banned for life after thirty years as a Fellow in good standing in the American College of Surgeons. I have detailed the circumstances of my ban elsewhere. I attempted to address this within the ACS according to its own rules and bylaws. The correspondence below will show the result of that effort. This is why I went public and why I continue to fight the capture of the ACS by DEI ideologues who seek to destroy it as a viable professional organization.

Below is my letter appealing my ban.

5 November 2022

Douglas E. Wood, MD, FACS ,FRCSEd

Chair, Central Judiciary Committee

American College of Surgeons

633 N. Saint Clair Street

Chicago, IL60611-3295

Dear Dr. Wood,

This letter serves as my formal request as a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in good standing for a hearing in person before the Central Judiciary Committee.

On April 17, 2022 I was informed by General Secretary and Editor of the Communities, Tyler Hughes, that my ACS Communities access was permanently suspended. This notification came after the fact when I inquired why I could not access the communities after several weeks of trying. I was given no prior notification that this action was being considered, much less had been taken. The reasons given for this drastic action were provided in the same email sent to me by Dr. Hughes informing me of this action and were my “continuous disrespectful language and placement of non-clinical posts in the General Surgery community.”

I have repeatedly requested to see examples of my disrespectful language in the Communities and of the non-clinical posts. I have received no response to this. As to the latter, this was a change to the Communities which was protested by multiple Fellows besides me, and all the posts to that effect were deleted by Dr. Hughes.

I appealed my permanent ban in an email to those members of the Board of Regents whose email address I was able to obtain. In addition to being banned from the Communities, I could no longer access the membership directory or even my own private messages. I was informed by Dr. Patricia Turner that I had received due process in this matter and that the permanent ban was being upheld. The assertion by Dr. Anton Sidawy that I am still a Fellow in the ACS rings hollow when I have been silenced just as completely as if I had been expelled. I am appalled at the discourteous, arbitrary treatment I have received at the hands of Dr. Hughes, Dr. Turner, and the Board of Regents. That this has been done to a Fellow of the ACS in good standing for nearly thirty years leaves me in disbelief.

My cancellation is related to one single issue and that has been my objection to the recent path taken by the ACS to deal with alleged systemic racism in the College, among the Fellows, and in surgery itself, all of which not only impact representation in the ACS but outcomes in surgery as well. My posts in the Communities regarding this received the largest number of comments from more Fellows than any other topic in the history of the ACS. Two thirds of the Fellows who commented on the issue agreed with me. Calling this issue non-clinical is arbitrary and incoherent especially when the ACS leadership claims that much of its push to install DEI in the College is to correct disparities in clinical outcomes of surgery for underrepresented minorities. It is clearly an attempt to silence dissent within the ACS to actions that some of us view as against the best interests of surgeons and the ACS. Many Fellows agree with me on this.

My ban is clearly a disciplinary action and violates rules related to the disciplinary process as clearly stated in Section 2. They are listed below.

1.      The decision to discipline me in this fashion was made without prior notification. In fact, it was carried out without informing me at all until I inquired why I could not access the Communities.

2.      Despite repeated requests I have never been given a single example of what I wrote that transgressed the new rules of the Communities.

3.      I was never notified by registered or certified mail of the actions of the Board, as required by the bylaws.

4.      To the above, I would add a fourth objection. A permanent ban of this nature in the absence of any evidence proffered to justify this is so disproportionate to the alleged transgressions that it should not be allowed to stand.

In view of the above, I respectfully request to be allowed to see the exact transgressions that prompted this ban and appear before the Board to offer my side of this issue with the purpose of obtaining reinstatement to all of the rights and privileges that are due me as a Fellow in good standing withing the ACS.

I would appreciate the courtesy of a prompt response to this request. I am willing to appear in person or virtually as may be deemed most expeditious.

Very respectfully,

Richard T. Bosshardt, MD, FACS

This was Dr. Woods reply:

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:b22114cd-f8f1-451c-b6a6-cf744ad1bca7

My response to Woods letter:

6 January 2023

Douglas Wood, MD, FACS, FRCSEd

Chair of the Central Judiciary Committee

American College of Surgeons

633 N. Saint Clair Street

Chicago, IL60611-3295

Dear Dr. Wood,

I am responding to your letter of November 30 and would like to address several points that you made.

I reference your statement “Suspension from the ACS Communities is not a disciplinary action under the Bylaws Section VII.1.”  You are incorrect. According to those very bylaws, I quote the first two paragraphs of Section 1. Discipline:

The Board of Regents may expel, call for the resignation of, or otherwise discipline any Fellow or member if a majority of all of the members of the Board of Regents shall find the conduct of the Fellow or member has been injurious to the good order, peace, reputation, or best interest of the College, or is derogatory to its dignity, inconsistent with its purposes, or shows a failure to maintain the standards of conduct set forth in the Fellowship Pledge.

Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the following shall in each case be considered to be conduct or conclusive evidence of conduct injurious to the best interest of the College and inconsistent with its purposes:

The section goes on to list a series of infractions, which by the wording of the first paragraph above, is not exhaustive or exclusionary. Clearly, none of those listed  in “a” through “i” apply to me so my alleged misbehavior must fall into the ill-defined category of “injurious to the good order, peace, reputation, or best interest of the College, or is derogatory to its dignity, inconsistent with its purposes, or shows a failure to maintain the standards of conduct set forth in the Fellowship Pledge.” I categorically and unequivocally deny this.

Dr. Wood, I have been a Fellow of the ACS for nearly thirty years in good standing and to my utter shock find that I have been banned for life from any direct involvement with other Fellows via the Communities, from access to the members directory, and even from accessing my own private messages. My alleged infractions justifying such drastic action include, according to Dr. Hughes, using disrespectful language and persistently posting non-clinical material in clinical forums. My repeated requests to be shown examples of either have been met with steadfast refusal to show me even one. Please explain to me how this action taken against me does not meet the definition of a disciplinary action.

According to Section 2. Disciplinary Procedure, it stipulates that once a disciplinary question is investigated by the Executive Director or Chief Executive Officer, if this “may warrant further consideration of disciplinary action” it “shall be referred to the Central Judiciary Committee” which shall decide that disciplinary action should be taken and submits its recommendation in writing to the Board of Regents.

The bylaws clearly require that a Fellow under investigation is to be given notice of this and allowed to present a defense before a judgement is handed down. He or she is to be informed of this judgement before the fact. None of this was done in my case.

By your own admission, this process was not followed and, as the Head of the Judiciary Committee, I would expect that this would concern you greatly unless you do not feel that following the bylaws is important to the credibility of the ACS as a professional organization. If I, as a Fellow in good standing, can be subjected to such Draconian punishment without due process, despite Dr. Turner’s farcical opinion that I did receive due process, then no Fellow in the ACS is safe if they choose to voice a difference of opinion or objection to the direction of the ACS. What, exactly, is your role if not to adjudicate in such matters?

Dr. Wood, I was effectively cancelled and silenced by Dr. Tyler Hughes, Dr. Patricia Turner, Dr. Anton Sidawy, and others in the ACS leadership for having the temerity to question the ACS’s headlong rush into adopting DEI and antiracism initiatives in the College as the answer to alleged disparities. I have been gaslighted by them repeatedly that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they are really not adopting critical race theory in the ACS. They have abused their authority in punishing me in this fashion and, in so doing, turned the ACS into a radical institution promoting an ideological narrative which is extremely controversial; a narrative that all disparities are the result of racial discrimination, that the ACS is systemically racist, and that surgeons and even the practice of surgery is racist. They have given no proof of this beyond the fact of disparities in representation in the surgery, the ACS, and in surgical outcomes, ignoring a plethora of historical, cultural, financial, and other potentially confounding factors If you review the comment thread of my post of last year, you will find that a majority of Fellows share my concerns.

I categorically deny that I was “continuously disrespectful” in my communications on the Communities and that I have been guilty of posting non-clinical material on the General Surgery Forum, as alleged by Dr. Hughes and which, by the way, he and others have repeatedly done. It was not the wording of my posts that was objectionable, it was the subject matter. Given that the College now asserts that disparities due to racism affect clinical outcomes in surgery, how can this topic be regarded as strictly non-clinical? I still await an example of any action on my part justifying my ban.

I appeal to your reasonable interpretation of the bylaws, your common sense, and your sense of fair play in providing me with an opportunity to put forth my case before the College. If this is not done, then I fear the ACS is lost as a credible organization representing surgeons.

Respectfully,

Richard T. Bosshardt, MD, FACS

Dr Woods final reply dismissing me once and for all:

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:b5cc0ab4-5c91-4ae6-86ba-6b3093eb93a8

If you have read this far, I hope that you will reflect on the level to which the ACS has sunk in dealing with its own members. Please feel free to share and comment. Thank you.

Richard T. Bosshardt, MD, FACS, Senior Fellow at Do No Harm, Founding Fellow at FAIR in Medicine.