"Since 2004, the number of Hispanic applicants to American medical schools has increased 22.9 percent, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. There was a nearly 6 percent rise between 2010 and 2011, from 3,271 to 3,459."
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Racial/Ethnic Diversity
Featured Items
Association of American Medical Colleges
February 1, 2012
"Achieving health equity requires reaching beyond the clinic and into communities. In this short video, the AAMC’s Diversity Policy and Programs division shines a spotlight on the social determinants of health and how they shape an individual’s opportunity for quality health and healthcare. The goal is to inspire changes that lead to the elimination of health disparities."
Tags: Social Mission
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
December 8, 2011
"The Gateway Medical Society, which consists of black doctors and is a Pittsburgh component of the Silver Spring, Md.-based National Medical Association, founded Journey to Medicine to provide role models to young, black males and to close the gap in racial disparities in health care."
Tags: Pipeline
Kaiser Health News
November 3, 2011
"Even as experts stress the need to provide more culturally competent care for the nation’s burgeoning Hispanic population, Congress is poised to reduce or eliminate some of the programs that fund training of minority students for careers in health care."
Tags: Medical Students
Association of American Medical Colleges
November 2011
"Despite the continuing effort of increasing the representation of women and non-white faculty, when full-time faculty are viewed in aggregate, the diversity of medical school faculty has not kept pace with the diversity of medical school students or of society overall."
In Legislation/On the Hill
February 2008
Senate voted 83-10 to approve the Indian Health Improvement Act which authorizes $35 billion over the next 10 years to expand health coverage to approximately 1.8 million American Indian and Alaskan Natives.
June 26, 2009
On June 26, members of the Congressional TriCaucus — the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus — introduced the Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2009. The bill outlines some of the TriCaucus priorities for health reform legislation to eliminating racial, ethnic and other disparities in access to health services and health status.
News
Chicago Sun-Times
December 16, 2011
"Since 2004, the number of Hispanic applicants to American medical schools has increased 22.9 percent, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. There was a nearly 6 percent rise between 2010 and 2011, from 3,271 to 3,459."
Common Health
February 9, 2012
"Dr. Alden Landry practices emergency medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, but he’s more than just a doctor — he’s helping lead the movement to diversify medicine. He heads up projects on the issue at Beth Israel, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School."
Association of American Medical Colleges
February 1, 2012
"Achieving health equity requires reaching beyond the clinic and into communities. In this short video, the AAMC’s Diversity Policy and Programs division shines a spotlight on the social determinants of health and how they shape an individual’s opportunity for quality health and healthcare. The goal is to inspire changes that lead to the elimination of health disparities."
Tags: Social Mission
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
December 8, 2011
"The Gateway Medical Society, which consists of black doctors and is a Pittsburgh component of the Silver Spring, Md.-based National Medical Association, founded Journey to Medicine to provide role models to young, black males and to close the gap in racial disparities in health care."
Tags: Pipeline
Indian Country Today Media Network
December 7, 2011
"The American Indian/Alaska Native population exceeds five million and has increased by 27 percent since the 2000 United States Census Bureau Report. Despite this positive population growth, there is an alarming inverse to this equation: the number of Native people applying to medical school and earning medical degrees is shrinking."
Tags: Workforce Shortage
Policy Briefs
There are no items in this category at this time.
Reports
Council on Medical Education
April 2011
"This report summarizes: (1) current data about diversity and distribution in the physician workforce; and (2) the status and impact of initiatives to enhance physician workforce diversity and access to care in underserved areas."
Association of American Medical Colleges
Spring 2010
"The Roadmap to Diversity: Integrating Holistic Review Practices into Medical School Admission Processes is designed to help admission deans, staff, and committees at medical schools develop and integrate holistic review practices into their student selection processes. This publication provides schools with a flexible, modular framework and accompanying tools for: aligning admission policies, processes, and criteria with institution-specific mission and goals, and establishing, sustaining, and reaping the benefits of medical student diversity (as defined by the school) in support of those missions and goals."
University of Albany Center for Health Workforce Studies
March 22, 2010
"The number of underrepresented minority (URM) physicians has not increased substantially over the past decade and remains far less than their corresponding proportion in the state's population. The study also found that URM physicians are more likely to practice in a primary care specialty and work in hospitals and clinics, and are also more likely to serve patients covered by Medicaid, and work in areas of the state that are federally designated as primary care shortage areas."
Center for Studying Health System Change
February 2010
"Despite broad consensus among the medical community about how physicians can help to address and, ultimately, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, physician adoption of several recommended practices to improve care for minority patients ranges from 7 percent reporting they have the capability to track patients' preferred language to 40 percent reporting they have received training in minority health issues to slightly more than half reporting their practices provide some interpreter services. The challenges physicians face in providing quality health care to all of their patients will keep mounting as the U.S. population continues to diversify and the minority population increases."
Government Accountability Office
November 2009
"Institutions that serve large proportions of low-income and minority students may receive funding under Titles III and V of the Higher Education Act. In fiscal year 2008, $667 million in grants were awarded to over 500 institutions. GAO was asked to determine (1) the characteristics of institutions eligible to receive grants under Titles III and V and characteristics of students served; (2) any challenges grantees face, and how they spent Title III and V funds to address these challenges; and (3) the extent to which the Department of Education (Education) monitors the financial and programmatic performance of grantees, and uses this information to target its technical assistance."
Research
Academic Medicine
February 2012
"There has been a gradual increase in the percentage of Hispanic medical school applicants over the last decade (Figure 1). Since 2002, the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) has allowed applicants to choose more than one ethnic origin and/or race. As is standard, the ethnic origin (or “Hispanic”) options precede the “race” options."
Association of American Medical Colleges
November 2011
"Despite the continuing effort of increasing the representation of women and non-white faculty, when full-time faculty are viewed in aggregate, the diversity of medical school faculty has not kept pace with the diversity of medical school students or of society overall."
2011
"A Black man on the south side of Chicago will live 8 years less than the average white man in the US. Much of this life expectancy gap is due to excess heart disease and cancer among Black men compared to whites. This gap could be reduced with prevention, early detection and access to primary care. The failures of the health care system in Chicago and in particular the gaping holes in the public health safety-net are partly to blame."
Tags: Access, Underserved
Academic Medicine
July 2011
"The success of black men and the factors that contribute to that success guided this study. The results reinforced the conclusion that success for black men is achieved via a balance between educational experiences, exposure to medicine, psychosocial–cultural experiences, and personal attributes and individual perceptions. This information can be used by medical schools to strengthen their outreach programs, provide a theoretical construct for discussion and research, and generate questions for future quantitative studies."
Tags: Medical Students
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
February 4, 2011
"Abraham Flexner's 1910 exposé on medical education recommended that only two of the seven extant medical schools for blacks be preserved and that they should train their students to “serve their people humbly” as “sanitarians.” Addressing charges of racism, this article traces the roots of the recommendation that blacks serve a limited professional role to the schools themselves and presents evidence that, in endorsing the continuance of Howard's and Meharry's medical programs, Flexner exhibited greater leniency than he had toward comparable schools for white students."
