Med schools face a new obstacle in the push to train more Black doctors

Jerrian Reedy, left, a student at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, assists Dorothy Gray, a student at Northside High School in the Mississippi Delta, as she practices intubation in a simulation lab. Gray, who is interested in pursuing a career in the mental health care field, attended the University of Mississippi School of Medicine’s annual African American Visit Day in April.

Of the 660 medical school students enrolled in the same four-year program as Reedy, 82 students, or about 12%, are Black. In Mississippi, state Rep. Becky Currie and state Sen. Angela Burks Hill, both Republicans, introduced separate bills that would have restricted how colleges and universities could spend money on DEI initiatives. Both bills died in legislative committees and were not brought before the 2024 legislature for a vote.

“We have to be very, very careful,” said Richard deShazo, who teaches at the University of Alabama’s Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine in Birmingham and used to chair a committee that raised money for Black medical school students.A shortage of Black doctors isn’t unique to Mississippi.

“We absolutely are not saying every Black patient has to have a Black doctor,” Haynes said. But because the patient population in Mississippi is diverse,"they should at least have the right to say, ‘This is what I want,’” he added. Many older Black physicians in Mississippi still remember getting those rejection letters, he said, pointing out composite photographs of physician graduates that line the walls of the medical school building in Jackson. Many of the earliest composites, dating to the 1950s, showcase classes of all-white, and almost all-male, students.

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