Opinion
We need more African American men in medicine. How do we get them there?
By Valerie Montgomery Rice
As president and dean of Morehouse School of Medicine, I am proud of Davon Thomas, M.D., for many reasons.
Davon Thomas recently graduated from Morehouse School of Medicine at the top of his class with a 4.0 grade-point average. His step 1 and step 2 national board exams were the highest in the class, surpassing national averages.
At our award ceremony, Thomas sat quietly with his mother, wife and 2 younger siblings and received virtually every academic award we present to medical graduates. His mother, Denise, glowed as her son placed each award – all 13 of them, one by one – gently in her lap.
Thomas is viewed as an anomaly in this country – the United States – for a number of reasons. In medicine, as a 25-year-old African American man, he earned a medical degree amid a troubling shortage today of African American males in American medical schools. He is also among a very small percentage of young African American males who maintain interest in science and math from elementary school through college.
This week, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) released a critical report titled, “Altering the Course: Black Males in Medicine.” The report shines light on a crisis in American medicine that should compel the nation’s 144 medical school leaders and those in the entire educational continuum in the United States to think differently.
At risk is our ability to build diversified health care teams that can adequately address the complex health needs of all Americans, particularly the most vulnerable among us. This risk is dramatically compounded by the millions of new Americans, many from disadvantaged groups, with health care access as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
“While the demographics of the nation are rapidly changing and there is a growing appreciation for diversity and inclusion as drivers of excellence in medicine, one major group – African American males – has reversed its progress in entering medical school,” said Marc Nivet, chief diversity officer at the AAMC and author of the report.
“No other minority group has experienced such a decline in applications to medical school. The inability to find, engage and develop candidates for careers in medicine from all members of our society limits our ability to improve health for all.”
In 2014, of the nearly 40,000 applicants to U.S medical schools, only 6 percent – or 3,537 – were African American. Of those 3,537 African American applicants, only 37.8 percent – or 1,337 – were men. The nearly 2-to-1 gender gap between African American female and male applicants was the largest gender disparity of any racial group.
Almost all other racial groups had close to an even balance of female and male applicants. By contrast, in 1978, African American males represented 58 percent of African American applicants to medical school. Moreover, despite overall increases in the number of African American male college graduates over the last 20 years, the year with the highest number of African American male applicants to U.S. medical schools was more than 30 years ago.
