According to a survey taken by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), only 9% of the 137 school’s student body was of African, Native, Hispanic, or Latino descent. Despite these statistics, many of the medical schools wish to push programs that will effectively shift the tides towards a more well-rounded and ethnically diverse student body.
For this reason, medical institutions are beginning to reach out to undergraduate universities to attract a more diverse crowd. Among the medical schools looking to engage in such programs are John Hopkins, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and University of Virginia School of Medicine. The hope is to bring a more diverse group into the fold to improve healthcare practices and create a more comforting atmosphere for a variety of patients.
Perspective is a big part of medical problem solving, and while the brightest minds are the number one priority, it’s also important to have people from various cultural backgrounds to provide different perspectives and think outside the box to come up with newer and better solutions to the problems facing our healthcare system today.
Recruitment and different techniques will play the biggest role in finding talented students that will help grow and expand the field of medicine. The medical schools mentioned above have already gone to great lengths in achieving this goal.
In doing so, students of different cultures will also be able to receive opportunities and financial aid, that simply wasn’t available for them before, to get into top-tier medical schools. What recruiters will take into account, more than anything else, is talent. Only the most gifted students will be able to take part in these expanding programs, so it’s not just about being a part of one ethnic group or another, it simply presents them with more opportunities from medical schools that are otherwise unaffordable for them.