More recruiting of underrepresented minorities, especially Hispanics, is needed by U.S. medical schools in order to train physicians to treat the nation’s increasingly
diverse population. Demystifying the process of applying to medical school might be one of the keys to expanding the diversity of applicants.
“We are deeply committed to increasing the number of minorities in medical schools,” said Dr. Darrell Kirch, president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). “You don’t improve the health of communities without having a work force that reflects the diversity of those communities.”
Kirch’s comments are reinforced by research from the American Medical Association (AMA) showing that minority patients prefer minority physicians, thus making it especially critical to attract and retain more minority applicants to medical school. For example, Hispanics make up 38 percent of California’s population, but only 5 percent of the state’s physicians are Hispanic. An AMA report titled Minorities in Medicine states that by 2050 racial and ethnic minorities will comprise half of the U.S. population.
