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.JACKSON, Miss.
Of the 660 medical school students enrolled in the same four-year program as Reedy, 82 students, or about 12%, are Black.Medical schools around the country are trying to recruit Black, Hispanic, and Native American students, all of whom remain disproportionately underrepresented in the field of medicine. Research has shown that patients of color prefer seeing doctors of their own race — and some studies have shown that Black patients who see Black doctors experience better health outcomes.
“Qualifications should determine who gets into medical school not color or socioeconomic status,” she said. “Can’t we just be happy with more highly qualified doctors no matter their skin color? I thought a color blind society was the goal.”Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said he believes diversity programs “fail for a hundred reasons.
“A lot of the Black physicians in the state have a bitter taste in their mouth about our medical school,” said Demondes Haynes, associate dean of medical school admissions at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he graduated in 1999 as one of four Black students in his class. For more than a century, dating to its founding in the mid-1800s, the University of Mississippi didn’t admit Black students — and that policy applied to its medical school. In 1972, nearly 10 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned racial segregation in higher education, thefrom the medical school in Jackson. Even then, very few Black students were admitted to study medicine there each year.
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