Surgeon general calls for more minorities in medicine

[Midnight Mike]

I guess you can only be cared for by members of your own race :wink:

http://www.ajc.com/health/surgeon-gener ... news_81963 (http://www.ajc.com/health/surgeon-general-calls-for-224878.html?cxtype=rss_news_81963)

Surgeon General Regina Benjamin said Thursday that the nation must reverse the downward trend of minorities attending medical, dental and nursing schools.


"Unless the current trend is reversed, our country will see a growing ethnic and racial disconnect between those who receive care and those who provide that care," Benjamin said during a conference on health disparities in downtown Atlanta.

The 53-year-old graduate of the Morehouse School of Medicine said the recent downward trend in minority admissions follows years of gains in these areas. She cited a study that said minorities make up only 6 percent of U.S. physicians, and she lamented that the percentage was the same in 1910.

"There's something wrong with that," she told an audience of 500 health professionals, educators and advocates at the Hyatt Regency.

[Matt Molnar]

It is a problem, but it's one that goes well beyond her jurisdiction. Furthermore, I'd imagine only a small chunk of that 6% are black or hispanic, the majority are probably Asian.

Very simple explanation: Schools in minority neighborhoods are a disaster, and the motivated kids who do get through it are less likely to get proper guidance counseling to get income and race-based scholarships they're eligible for and less likely to have $300K laying around.

[diegodangers]

It is a problem, but it's one that goes well beyond her jurisdiction. Furthermore, I'd imagine only a small chunk of that 6% are black or hispanic, the majority are probably Asian.

Very simple explanation: Schools in minority neighborhoods are a disaster, and the motivated kids who do get through it are less likely to get proper guidance counseling to get income and race-based scholarships they're eligible for and less likely to have $300K laying around.

amen.

[Tom_Turner]

Well, I suppose it would be too much for her to note that the Democratic Party is in the pocket of the Teachers' Union and therefore no reform is likely.

And, the huge proliferation of social programs and the Welfare State over the decades has done nothing to improve the matter(s) she is concerned about... as she cites 1910 as an example.

I wonder what she imagines the "nation" should "do" to balance the scales for ethnic bean counters.

Tom

[Matt Molnar]

I wonder what she imagines the "nation" should "do" to balance the scales for ethnic bean counters.

Tom
Governments are already amending civil service tests so that minorities have a better chance of passing...i.e. the New Haven firefighters. Why not make the medical boards easier, too?

[Tom_Turner]

I wonder what she imagines the "nation" should "do" to balance the scales for ethnic bean counters.

Tom
Governments are already amending civil service tests so that minorities have a better chance of passing...i.e. the New Haven firefighters. Why not make the medical boards easier, too?

Yeah, why not... :cry:

I am pretty sure the FDNY changed the rules to increase numbers of female fire fighters... less upper body strength and so forth.. just don't be unconscious at the top of some walk-up during a fire I guess....

On a more serious note since the above is beneath contempt, I remember back to the Backke (sp?) reverse discrimination case. A white guy sued, more or less successfully in terms of the ultimate verdict, that he had been improperly (unconstitutionally perhaps) passed over in favor of a black medical student. As it happened both gentlemen were within tenths or hundredths of a point of one another (or otherwise very close..) and it occurred to me they were obviously BOTH qualified and I then wondered why there were so few (apparently) slots in some medical studies such that it precluded apparently qualified applicants from applying. Wouldn't it be good to have MORE doctors...(as opposed to lawyers... :) ) of which there are plenty...

Tom