Life
Profile: Dr. Kameron Matthews co-founder of the Tour for Diversity in Medicine
About 12 percent of the incoming class at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk comes from under-represented races and ethnicities – higher than in previous years, said Dr. Richard V. Homan, the school’s provost and dean.
To help attract minorities, EVMS has built relationships with nearby historically black colleges and is a partner in a bachelor’s/medical degree program that allows some higher-achieving students to be admitted to EVMS without taking the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).
Homan hopes to do more, including adding a “vice president for diversity” position. In his prior post as dean and president of Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, he helped to develop a “holistic review” admissions process that weighs factors, such as family and community backgrounds, along with grade-point averages and MCAT scores.
“My career goals have always been to provide opportunities for those individuals that weren’t afforded opportunities that were afforded me,” Homan said.
Ariel James was among dozens of students wrestling with sample MCAT problems in a hushed Hampton University student center ballroom.
She began thinking about medical school when she was growing up in Suffolk, helping her mother study for nursing exams. Now 25, James has a biology degree from Norfolk State University. She’s working toward a master’s degree in medical science, then medical school.
James predicts the percentage of black doctors will rise with her generation.
“With loans, with scholarships, with encouragement from people who look like us, we can really step it up and get more physicians of color out there,” she said. “It’s not impossible.”
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
