Racial/Ethnic Diversity: News

"Doctor's Group Issues Apology for Racism"
Washington Post, July 10, 2008
"The country's largest medical association today issued a formal apology today for its historical antipathy toward African American doctors, expressing regret for a litany of transgressions, including barring black physicians from its ranks for decades and remaining silent during battles on landmark legislation to end racial discrimination." Read More...

University of California Trying to Grow More Doctors Who Will Stay Local
Fresno Bee, June 22, 2008
Efforts are underway to boost the number of primary care physicians practicing in the San Joaquin Valley. Currently, the area has 30% fewer primary care physicians compared to the state as a whole, and only 5% of physicians are Hispanic and 3% of physicians are African American. Read More...

'Bakke' Sets a New Path to Diversity for Colleges
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 16, 2008
"Thirty years ago, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. sent the nation's selective colleges down a path where few had ventured before. In the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, he wrote that colleges were legally justified in giving some modest consideration to their applicants' race, so long as they were motivated by a desire to attain the educational benefits of diversity." Read More...

"UCLA's New Admission Policy Rights a Wrong"
Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2008
"It's no secret that the number of African American students admitted to UCLA plummeted after 1996, when Proposition 209 was passed. Last year, however, UCLA officials implemented a new admissions policy." Read More...

Prestigious Program Builds Corps of Minority Doctors
Indy Star, October 2, 2008
"Harold Amos was a scientist and educator, an avid classical pianist and Francophile who served on the Harvard medical school faculty for almost 50 years where he garnered a truly remarkable number of professional honors. He was one of the first African-Americans, if not the first, to "make it" in academic medicine." Read More...

Tuskegee, A Cloud Over Research
Washington Post, September 30, 2008
"Today minority patients are underrepresented in clinical trials. African American, Latino and Asian populations account for about one-third of all Americans, but less than one-tenth of U.S. clinical trial participants come from these groups. Why? In large measure, it's because too few minority physicians participate in clinical research. Black and Latino physicians are more likely to treat patients of similar race and ethnicity, and there is considerable evidence that a physician's race is an important factor in influencing patient participation in a clinical trial." Read More...

Minority Admissions Fall at U-M
The Detroit News - October 21, 2008
"The University of Michigan has seen an 8 percent decline in underrepresented minority freshman enrollment since it began using a race-blind admissions system after the voter-approved initiative Proposal 2 passed in 2006. Fewer black, Latino and Native American students are training to be doctors and lawyers at Michigan's eight professional schools today than two years ago." Read More...

Developing Diversity: Dr. Wesley McNeese succeeds in Bringing Wider Community to SIU
The State Journal Register, October 18, 2008
"The school has established ground-breaking programs designed to bring caring, competent physicians to central and southern Illinois. Still, while programs that broke with tradition were conceived and designed at SIU School of Medicine, for years the innovations were held within the walls of the school. The broader communities did not see it. The new doctors looked just like the old doctors — predominately male and white. Excellent physicians, but doctors cut mostly from a single mold." Read More...

Helping Young Minorities See They Can Be Doctors
New York Times, October 18, 2008
"When 15-year-old Alexis Cloud was in the eighth grade, she told her social studies teacher that she wanted to become a doctor...her teacher was not exactly heartening, telling Alexis that becoming a doctor would require many years of school. But on Saturday, Alexis, was among about 500 black and Latino students who got a different message during a forum here aimed at encouraging minorities to pursue careers in medicine." Read More...

UC Regents Move Towards Easing Admissions Requirements
Los Angeles Times - February 5, 2009
"University of California regents Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a controversial change in freshman admission standards that would drop the requirement for two SAT subject exams and make more students eligible for a review of their applications while guaranteeing entry to fewer. The change is considered among the most sweeping admissions policy shifts by the university in years." Read More…

Doctors and diversity: A study finds minority groups are greatly underrepresented in New York
Times Union - March 29, 2009
"Minority groups are substantially underrepresented in New York's physician work force compared to their share of the general population, according to a study from the University at Albany. These groups, African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos and American Indians/Alaska Natives have been underrepresented in the field for years." Read More…

Mentors Inspire Next Generation of Physicians
Ventura County Star - May 3, 2009
"Latinos make up more than 32 percent of California's population but only 5 percent of its doctors. If the University of California system's five medical schools accepted only minority students beginning next year, it would take about four decades to produce enough doctors to match the state's overall diversity. Money is another wall. About 60 percent of the nation's medical students come from the wealthiest 20 percent of the nation's families. The cost of medical schools across the nation increased 11 percent a year from 2001 to 2006." Read More…

Tribal Members Recruited into Medical Fields
Arizona Republic - April 27, 2009
"The need for Native Americans in the health-care professions has never been greater, but the obstacles standing between them and medical degrees are often daunting, if not overwhelming. For a young Hopi medical student, the problem was overcoming her culture's view of handling a dead body. For a Navajo student, it was learning to believe that he could become a doctor when every other kid in his graduating class was going to a trade school." Read More...

Shortage of Hispanic MDs in California Exacerbates Health Issues
Hispanic Business - July 9, 2009
"Although Hispanics make up a third of California's population, they constitute just 5 percent of the state's pool of physicians, according to a 2008 study by the Center for California Health Workforce Studies. Health officials say the shortage is problematic because Hispanic doctors are many times more likely than non-Hispanic doctors to work in areas where healthcare services are lacking. They're also more likely to practice primary care, a branch of medicine that is lagging as medical students flock to the more lucrative specialty fields." Read More…

Native American Enrollment Doubles at School of Medicine
The University of New Mexico Today - July 23, 2009
"Twice as many Native Americans were accepted into UNM's School of Medicine (SOM) in 2009 than in any previous class. Five of the nine accepted students graduated from New Mexico high schools; three attended UNM as undergraduates; and two have accepted full School of Medicine tuition scholarships. More than half of the new SOM students had received offers from other medical schools." Read More…

Report: Health Care Race Gap Costs Billions
September 18, 2009 – Baltimore Sun
"Minorities are generally sicker and more likely than whites to die of numerous diseases, and until now, medical experts and advocates fighting to close those gaps have made their pleas on moral grounds. But the new figures aim to break down the issue into dollars and cents at a time when everyone is trying to figure out how to rein in soaring health care costs." Read More…

Health Conference Supports Pre-Med Minority Students
November 9, 2009 – The Stanford Daily
"Applying to medical school is daunting to all students, but it may be even more so to students from minority backgrounds. This is recognized by the Stanford chapter of Chicanos in Health Education (CHE), who hosted the 17th annual Dia de Los Muertos Pre-Health Conference on Saturday. The goal of the event was to supply pre-medical and pre-health students of minority groups with information about the application processes for medical school, public health school and dental school." Read More…

Surgeon General Calls for More Minority Doctors
December 3, 2009 – Associated Press
"The new U.S. Surgeon General on Thursday called for stepped-up efforts in increasing the number of minority physicians. In what was one of her first speeches to a large crowd since she was sworn in Nov. 3, Dr. Regina Benjamin noted that the proportion of U.S. physicians who are minorities is only 6 percent — the same proportion as a century ago." Read More…

More Minority Doctors Needed to Improve Health System, Panel Says
January 19, 2010 – Medill Reports, Northwestern University
"Increasing the number of medical professionals from disadvantaged minority groups could help resolve racial disparities in the American health system, a panel of Illinois doctors and professors agreed Monday. More African American and Hispanic doctors and nurses would help alleviate the problem of inattention to environmental problems, such as poverty, housing and crime, which affect health, said the panel at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day discussion at Northwestern University Law School." Read More…

UMass Medical to Invite Freshmen: Diversity the Goal of Unusual Program
January 25, 2010 – Boston Globe
"The University of Massachusetts Medical School, seeking to bolster the number of minority physicians in Massachusetts, plans to offer high school seniors the rare opportunity to gain admission to college and medical school at the same time." Read More…

Lecture Examines Health Disparities as Social Justice
January 22, 2010 – Vanderbilt Reporter
"Students, faculty and staff packed Light Hall Monday to hear Wayne Riley, M.D., M.P.H., MBA, deliver the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture on Monday. On the topic of inequities, he shared continued concerns regarding the physician workforce, specifically, that less than 2 percent of U.S. physicians were African-American in 1960 and that, according to the latest data available, only 4 percent of U.S. physicians are African-American and 5 percent Hispanic." Read More…

Minority Doctors Needed to Help Bridge Health Care Gap Between US Minorities and Non-Hispanic Whites
March 5, 2010 – Voices of America
"Numerous studies indicate African-Americans and Hispanics receive a poorer quality of health care than non-Hispanic whites, even when they have the same levels of income and health insurance coverage. Researchers say the reasons for this disparity include stereotyping of patients by health care providers, and a severe shortage of minority health care professionals." Read More…

UTEP a Key Player in Helping Meet the Hispanic Physician Shortage
June 26, 2010 – El Paso Headlines Examiner
"In the June 7 issue of Newsweek, the article "Where are All the Latino Doctors?" points out that while Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the United States, "the number of physicians coming out of the community has failed to keep pace.This problem is being addressed at The University of Texas at El Paso, where the Medical Professions Institute is helping talented students acquire the skills to compete successfully for admission into medical school." Read More...

Health Care Professions Need More Diversity
June 25, 2010 – New America Media
"The trend line of diversity in health professionals has laid flat over the years," said Garcia, Latino program director at the Center of Excellence in Cultural Diversity at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Garcia noted that since 1995, about half of the students entering California medical schools are from upper-income backgrounds. Less than six percent have been from families in the nation's lowest income group, "where many minority kids are from," he said. According to a 2008 University of California in San Francisco study, although 40 percent of the state population is Latino and African American, only 10 percent of the state's doctors are from these two ethnic groups. The study revealed similar shortages in Asian subgroups, such as the Samoan, Cambodian and Hmong. Garcia stressed that recruiting ethnic students into the health professions is the best way to make sure there are enough culturally competent and bilingual health professionals in the workforce to provide patients easy access to affordable and quality health care services in the future." Read More...

$4.4 Million Grant for Hispanic Center of Excellence
July 20, 2010 – The University of Texas Medical Branch
"The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has received a $4.4 million grant to help fund the Hispanic Center of Excellence Medical Careers Diversity Program. The three-year grant from the Health Research Services Administration will enable the center to continue its partnership with six undergraduate institutions to develop a larger pool of competitive applicants for medical careers. The center also supports the recruitment, training and retention of Hispanic faculty." Read More...

Medical Education Futures Study

George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services

Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation

Racial/Ethnic Diversity: News