The proportion of black, American Indian and Hispanic students in U.S. medical schools remains lower than that of general minority populations nationwide, a recent study by the Institute of Medicine indicates.
The study shows that the percentage of minority students being accepted to American medical schools has not increased since 1970. Both enrollment and graduation rates increased steadily from the 1980s through the mid-1990s but have since declined.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, underrepresented minorities made up 18.2 percent of medical school enrollment in the year 2002. Just 10 percent of 2001 graduates were underrepresented minorities.
Among Ivy League medical schools, Harvard Medical School features the highest reported percentage -- 20 percent -- of underrepresented minorities, according to The Princeton Review. Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons features the lowest reported percentage: 12 percent.
Underrepresented minorities comprise 18 percent of the student body at both the Yale School of Medicine and the Weill Medical College of Cornell, 16 percent at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and 14 percent at the Brown School of Medicine, according to The Princeton Review.
Dartmouth Medical School does not make public the percentage of enrolled underrepresented minorities, although it does note on its website that enrollment is 25 percent "international and students of color." 1999 data from the American Medical School Association shows that DMS had 15.3 percent underrepresented minority enrollment in its entering class that year.
DMS Director of Admissions Andrew Welch was unavailable for comment despite repeated requests.
However, DMS insisted in a written statement that it "has increased resources and personnel to assure diversity ... visits AAMC-sponsored programs for underrepresented college students, as well as maintaining contacts with pre-med advisors at various colleges."
The report's authors, though, said more needs to be done nationally.Kevin Barnett, senior investigator at the Public Health Institute in Oakland, Calif., said the study was designed to highlight the disproportionately low representation of some minorities in medical schools and the need to increase that percentage.
"It was undertaken in general because there is an objective disparity between the general population and the enrollment," Barnett said. "The general thrust of the inquiry was to provide an evidence base to highlight the problem, to make a case for why it is important."
Barnett called this disparity a significant societal problem. Recruiting additional minorities is important, he said, because their education will likely improve healthcare quality and access for other minorities.
The report suggests that minorities are more likely to receive improved access to treatment from minority doctors because such doctors are more likely to practice in communities with large minority populations.
Despite this potential benefit, Barnett cautioned against premature conclusions. "The research on the issue of healthcare disparities is such that it is difficult to draw a direct linkage...there are a lot of indirect suggestions," Barnett said.
