(The Center Square) – A doctor says the Association of Medical Colleges needs to start solely focusing on education as the organization faces a lawsuit from a medical student who claims that the group participates in a monopoly associated with medical school applications.
“This lawsuit makes the case that the AAMC maintains an illegal monopoly on the market for potential medical students, raking in more than $50 million in application fees every year,” Chairman at Do No Harm Stanley Goldfarb, MD, said in a statement obtained by The Center Square.
Do No Harm is a group of “physicians, nurses, medical students, patients, and policymakers focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice,” according to its website.
Goldfarb said that “the AAMC has profited off of aspiring medical students all while pushing an identity politics agenda that is destructive to what should be the singular aim of producing the most prepared and qualified crop of medical professionals.”
“The AAMC should be focused solely on the quality of medical education and not on identity politics or on creating money-making schemes,” Goldfarb said.
When reached, the AAMC told The Center Square that “the AAMC is aware of the lawsuit that has been filed.”
“While we cannot comment on ongoing litigation, we remain committed to a fair and convenient application process for all medical school applicants and will vigorously defend this lawsuit,” the AAMC said.
The AAMC is a nonprofit association “dedicated to transforming health through medical education, health care, medical research, and community collaborations,” according to its website.
In the class action complaint filed against the AAMC, plaintiff and medical student Nirvana Durbal alleges that the organization “illegally maintains a monopoly in the market for medical school application platforms and uses the millions in annual overcharges to kickback money to member medical schools.”
The complaint finds the AAMC guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act and alleges that these violations are in order to “gouge medical school applicants attempting to follow their dreams.”
The complaint explained that the two-part medical school application process of Primary and Secondary Applications – the former of which the AAMC has a hand in – can end up costing students thousands of dollars in fees.
“AAMC takes advantage of students’ aspirations to be doctors by fixing exorbitant prices for medical school Primary Applications,” the complaint stated.
Additionally, the complaint alleges that the “ostensible not-for-profit” AAMC “annually collects more than $50 million in Primary Application fees from applicants who have no other choice in this monopolized and restrained market.”
The complaint stated that “injunctive relief, treble damages, and other remedies are appropriate to rectify AAMC’s wrongdoing.”
One of the plaintiff’s lawyers – Will Burgess of Hilgers Graben – referred The Center Square to the allegations in the complaint and said “we don’t have any further comment.”
Do No Harm has covered many of the AAMC’s diversity, equity, and inclusion-related initiatives in the past, such as its “DEI manifesto” for medical students as well as a webinar instructing pediatricians to be “antiracist” activists.
Do No Harm has stated that the AAMC “should not sacrifice merit for ideology” and that as of June 2025 DEI is still present at the organization despite its efforts to scrub the evidence away.
