Hospital Practice

ISSN: 2154-8331 (Print) 2377-1003 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ihop20

Training Black Physicians: The Current Status Therman E. Evans To cite this article: Therman E. Evans (1976) Training Black Physicians: The Current Status, Hospital Practice, 11:9, 13-17, DOI: 10.1080/21548331.1976.11706987 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21548331.1976.11706987

Published online: 06 Jul 2016.

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Date: 21 August 2017, At: 21:46

September 1976

Hospital Practice Training Black Pl1ysiciar1s: 1-,lle Curre11t Status

Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 21:46 21 August 2017

Editorial

If history is a teacher, and few question whether it is, the improvement of the health status of black people in this country may lie in the hearts, minds, and hands of black people. This is not to say that there have not been sensitive whites who have made and continue to make significant contributions towards the improved health status of blacks. It is to say, however, that black physicians, for the most part, deliver medical care to black people. It is to say that a white doctor does not always replace a nonexistent black doctor. It is to further say that the small size of the black medical professional group necessarily attenuates the communications between black and white society, reduces the internal leadership that those professionals can provide within the black community, and, perhaps most important of all, deprives young blacks of positive models to follow in shaping their lives. Currently there are approximately 375,000 physicians in this country. Only about 6,o48 are black. That is approximately 1.7%. There is one white physician for every 6oo white people and one black physician for every 5,000 black people. In 114 U. S. medical schools, for the school year 1975-76 there were 55,818 students enrolled. The number of black students was 3,456, or 6.2% of that total. This percentage does not come near the percentage that blacks represent in the overall population -which was the stated goal of the medical educational establishment for 1975. In fact, not only did the first-year enrollment of black students decrease from 1,106 to 1,036 (from a percentage of 7. 5% to 6.8% of the first-year class), but the overall percentage of black students in medical schools dropped from the 6. 3% of 1974-75 to the 6.2% of 1975-76. Since 1968 (when the thrust to increase the number of U.S. minorities enrolled in medical professions first began) many programs for the recruitment and retention of minority students have come into existence at the medical schools themselves. Still, some medical schools admit to having no program designed to place special emphasis on the recruitment and retention of minorities, and this is usually reflected in their small enrollment of minority students. For example, in 1974-75 the

University of Connecticut School of Medicine had no fom1al program for minority recruitment and of the 112 black Americans who applied, only two were offered a place in the first-year class. Another example is the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine, which, as of 1974-75, had no special minority group recruitment program. The year (1974-75) brought 216 black American applicants, of whom only three were offered places. Other schools have established programs designed specifically to recruit, admit, and retain minorities; and, depending upon the size and involvement of,the effort, and the commitment extant at the institution to support it, there has been some good and moderate success. The extent of the institutional effort and the commitment behind it, again, is reflected in the admission, retention, and graduation of minority medical students. The characteristics that seem to accompany a successful minority recruitment effort are: 1) a definitive program with a focus provided by a specific name or title with a specific person or persons in charge; the more firmly entrenched in the institution the program and/or the person in charge is, the more successful it will be; 2) either a separate review and acceptance process for minority applicants conducted by minority reviewers, a minority-controlled review process that results in recommendations to the full admissions committee that makes the final decision, or significant minority representation on the full admissions committee; 3) available financial assistance to help defray a significant portion of and/or all of the costs of going to medical school; and 4) a flexible and adaptive academic program that takes into account varying academic and sociocultural differences. Of course, an overall institutional commitment to real affirmative action towards minority medical student admissions and graduation would make a special effort, with a special office, unnecessary. However, those institutions that have programs (continued on page 16)

This editorial is by Dr. Tl~ennan E. Evans, President of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia. Hmpital Practice September 1

Training black physicians: the current status.

Hospital Practice ISSN: 2154-8331 (Print) 2377-1003 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ihop20 Training Black Physicians: The...
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