Recruiting a more diverse pool of doctors
Medical and dental students at the University of Minnesota are not just learning their professions, they're learning how their professions need to fit into the life of the state. An article by Deane Morrison in today's UM eNews tells about Minnesota's Future Doctors program:
As an immigrant to the United States from Liberia in 2001, Georgette McCauley has seen more than her share of turmoil. But there's one thing in particular she would like to change in her home country: young women's lack of health information.
"I'd like to go back to Liberia someday and educate young women on how to prevent sexual disease and how to take better care of their bodies," says McCauley, who has just completed her freshman year at St. Mary's University of Minnesota.
She is one of 23 Minnesota college students in a new joint program of the University's Medical School and Mayo Medical School to help increase the numbers of minority, immigrant and rural doctors in the state.
Called Minnesota's Future Doctors, the program is the brainchild of two U medical students, Gareth Forde and Matt Fitzpatrick. It brings in high-ability students during the summer and the academic year to learn about topics like the science behind medicine and how to take the Medical College Admission Test. This summer's inaugural group has already toured the Mayo Clinic and UMD's Medical School, worked on a volunteer project, and shadowed doctors to see how medicine is practiced on a daily basis.
"[Forde and Fitzpatrick] wanted to create future classmates who were more reflective of Minnesota," says program director Jo Peterson. "This project aims at narrowing the disparity and increasing the percentage of persons of color.
"The reason that's important is that persons who work with doctors within their same cultural values [and] community of color feel they have better health care, and they continue to work with that doctor."
According to an AAMC report 2006 and Minnesota Department of Health 2007, percentages of physicians in Minnesota aren't representative of minority communities.
- American Indian: 2% of population, 0.7% of physicians
- Asian: 4% of population, 7% of physicians (although Hmong and Vietnamese are underrepresented)
- Black/African American: 5% of population, 1% of physicians
- Latino: 4 percent of population, 2 percent of physicians
- White: 85% of population, 86% of physicians