Medical schools enrolled a more diverse incoming class this year than in previous years, according to new data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
The boost was driven by significant increases among two ethnic groups historically underrepresented in medicine, according to AAMC data: Hispanic and Native American students, whose populations rose by 4.5 percent and 14.7 percent, respectively, from 2022–23 to 2023–24. The number of Black matriculants fell slightly, by 0.1 percent, and first-time Pacific Islander enrollment fell by 6.9 percent. First-generation matriculants at medical colleges rose by 2.5 percent.
The number of women enrolling for the first time in medical colleges also rose, by 0.7 percent, making women 54.6 percent of all medical students in 2023–24. It is the fifth consecutive year that women have outnumbered men in medical colleges. The number of male matriculants, however, also rose for the second year in a row, by 1 percent, following six years of declines.
Both total enrollment and first-year enrollment at medical colleges increased, by 1.2 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, even as the number of applications declined by 4.7 percent.
I wonder how the supreme court decision will affect next year
I believe the SCOTUS decision applies to undergrad school admissions only…not professional schools.
There is a lawsuit from a medschool applicant who didn’t get in with better credentials than URM and even if it is not they should not take race into consideration.
The TX lawsuit involves a white male student who alleges he was discriminated against because of his race and gender,.
However, six different med schools, all operating independently of each other and without any knowledge of how the other schools evaluated the applicant, rejected him. The likelihood of 6 different med schools with 6 different missions and 6 different and independent admission committees rejecting him solely because of his race and gender is, I believe, fairly remote. There must have been some sort of shortcomings in his application.
Med schools admission is not based solely on GPA and MCAT score.
Regarding physician ethnic diversity, it seems like patients have preferences in this respect, although there does not appear to be preference regarding gender: Racial/Ethnic and Gender Concordance Between Patients and Physicians and Patient Experience Ratings
A analysis showed ORM and White students’ median MCAT is 513-14 whereas the corresponding score for URM is 504. People across races had an acceptance rate of 37-42% for medschool!
Again, a medical school admission is not just about GPA and MCAT scores.
Stats only prevent an applicant from being cut from admission consideration. It’s the everything else (mission-fit, LOEs, experiences, personal statement, secondary essays, interview performance, etc) that get an applicant accepted.
Applicants often don’t realize the importance of mission-fit in gaining a med school acceptance. Every med school has a mission statement for a reason.
I know someone who works in health care and who speaks Spanish relatively well. Many of her patients are Spanish speaking. If the patient only speaks Spanish, it is a big help if the healthcare provider can speak Spanish. The same agency where she works also has nurses who speak a wide range of other languages (Haitian Creole is one example that comes to mind), because that is what some of their patients speak.
On the one hand I want health care providers who are very good at the health care aspects of what they do. I want my surgeon to be a good surgeon more than I want him to be a nice human being or to look like me. However, there is also some legitimate reasons to have health care providers who both understand the culture that they are working in, and who have language skills that fit their patients.
Med school admission is holistic, but interviews, experiences, etc, are all distributed evenly across all races. I know kids who have median scores from URM who got into multiple med schools with financial aid, while kids with 520 plus among ORMs didn’t get admission. There is also plenty of evidence that the URM kids, upon graduation, are going to bigger cities and not taking care of the patients who share their culture. This is just ideology and discriminatory.
Many bigger cities do have large populations of people of URM race/ethnicity. For example, a pediatrician of Mexican American cultural background practicing in Los Angeles may find lots of patients with familiar cultural backgrounds.
^^
Truth. D2 has a med school friend whose spouse was a practicing physician in Mexico. He retrained in the US after his marriage. Both halves of the couple (both are fluent in Spanish) are now practice in Los Angeles, primarily with Spanish-speaking patients. He is in FM; she’s a critical care/pulmology specialist who frequently treats undocumented workers in the stone cutting industry.
And what you said about URM physicians heading to cities does not contradict the fact that URM physician are significantly more likely to work in medically underserved areas or with ethnic/racial minority populations.
URM physicians were more likely to practice in underserved areas than their White peers regardless of specific specialties.
Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are far, far more likely than any other ethnic or racial group to practice primary medicine on Native American reservations than any other ethnic group and they enter IHS residency training programs at far higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group.
American Indian and Alaska Native physicians are predominantly practicing in the fields of family medicine, pain medicine, and preventive medicine.
Both D1 and D2 had several med school classmates who were enrolled members of their Native American tribes. Every single one of those classmates now practice on or close to the reservation they grew up on.