Co-North American Regional Editor, Rural and Remote Health
Studies consistently demonstrate that medical students who are different, diverse, minority, lower income, or rural have different patterns of distribution as physicians. They return to different, diverse, minority, or rural populations at increased levels, typically at approximately 2–3 times highe...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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2008
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.560.4348 http://www.rrh.org.au/publishedarticles/article_print_1036.pdf |
| Summary: | Studies consistently demonstrate that medical students who are different, diverse, minority, lower income, or rural have different patterns of distribution as physicians. They return to different, diverse, minority, or rural populations at increased levels, typically at approximately 2–3 times higher levels. This effect of experiential place or life experiences shaping practice location has been studied in all of the above dimensions. Residency, medical school, and birth to admission experiences all shape practice location. It is possible to pull out any number of examples of ‘minority’. Of course with each example, the focus is on the ‘minority ’ and not all who are ‘minority’. It is common to think in terms of ‘minority ’ admissions when considering displaced Natives (First Nations peoples) or populations who capture lower percentages of total physicians when compared with their percentage of the population. In America, the African American, rural, Hispanic, and lower income origin physicians are all ‘underrepresented’. Each group captures less than 10 % of total physician graduates. The use of the terms ‘minority ’ or ‘diverse ’ should be recognized as a construct of those shaping workforce studies. It is a perception and a series of observations, typically from past tradition or based on majority status. However those who are a majority in medical education and in medicine are not really a majority. Those who are considered ‘minority ’ are actually a majority of the US population. For many decades approximately 60–65 % of US allopathic medical school graduates have been admitted from the top 20 % of the population by income. The second quintile captures the next 20 % of medical school positions. The remaining 20 % of medical school students are admitted from © RC Bowman, 2008. A licence to publish this material has been given to ARHEN |
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