Medical Mondays

This is my first ever Medical Mondays post so I hope it goes well!!

This blog post is dedicated to Medicine. That may include important medical knowledge and developments. It may just be about my life on the path to medicine. Whatever it entails, I hope it's not too dull, lol. If you have any medical questions or suggestions of what to write about, let me know and I'll do it in an upcoming Medical Mondays posting!

So, today's post is about outreach to minorities in medicine. There are so few minorities in medicine. The only minority who seems to be accounting for more than their population percentage is Asians, and that's only because they lump all Asians in together. But I think it's really a shame that when the M4s (fourth year medical students) graduate from U of I Rockford this year, there will only be 2.5 black people left as students in the school. And no black males. I know those dismal statistics don't apply everywhere. The Chicago campus actually has a nice number of black people. But it's a problem that occurs more often than people notice.

Americans are really good at setting up confirmation biases in their heads. They see Isaiah Washington on Grey's Anatomy, Omar Epps on House, and Hill Harper on CSI: NY, and all of a sudden people think black doctors are everywhere, especially black males. It's just not true. Think about it. How many black doctors do you personally know? Unless you work in a hospital in an urban area, I'm guessing less than 3. Probably closer to zero.

This problem doesn't affect just black people. That's just my focus cause I'm black. It's really a problem. But the bigger problem is there are no easy solutions. Affirmative Action can't fix this one. Even if we magically got more minorities into med school, there's no guarantee they even have the tools to get through. So what can be done? I wish I knew. If I had the answer to that, I'd be getting an MPH (Master's in Public Health) or and MHA (Master's in Hospital Administration) instead of an MD. But it'sjust a problem that I feel should have attention drawn to it.

Maybe someone out there somewhere has the tools to come up with a solution, but they weren't aware there was a problem. I look forward to the days when the makeup of the medical profession is actually comparable to makeup of this country.