Executive Summary and Preface Download
Diversity in U.S. Medical Schools: Revitalizing Efforts to Increase Diversity in a Changing Context, 1960s-2000s, the report of a major study conducted by Institute investigators, is being released in March 2010. The aim of this seven-year study (2002-2009) was to better understand the mix of interventions, public and private, needed to increase racial/ethnic diversity in medical schools, particularly among applicants, acceptants, matriculants, and graduates who are underrepresented in medicine.
The study examined, over the period from the early 1960s through the early 2000s, the changing policy context within the federal government, the State of California, the University of California and Stanford University, and the University of California, San Francisco and Stanford University medical schools and how racial/ethnic diversity in medical schools was affected by these changes.
In-depth case studies of UCSF and Stanford medical schools over this period were conducted to learn how the schools developed and modified institutional policies. National and California demographic, K-16 education, and medical school trends were examined, as well as graduate medical education and physician workforce issues. Social and political developments beyond government and university policies that have affected diversity were explored, as well as other concurrent efforts, including the contributions of professional and trade associations and foundations to increasing diversity.
At the federal and state levels, civil rights, health care, health workforce, health professions education, higher education, and elementary and secondary education policies were found to be driving forces in advancing—or impeding—medical schools’ efforts to increase diversity.
Among the other major findings of the study are that UCSF and Stanford medical schools were early national leaders, and remain so today, in increasing the numbers of those underrepresented in medicine. The schools have had the capacity to:
- Recognize and mobilize leadership from many quarters and of many different types—students, campus organizations, staff, faculty, senior administrators, and activist community members—to advance diversity within and outside their schools.
- Link diversity to excellence in meeting the medical schools’ interrelated missions of education and training, research, patient care, and public or community service.
-
Revitalize efforts to increase diversity by renewing leadership over time to develop and modify a mission-driven, multidimensional approach focused on action in eight policy areas:
- outreach and recruitment
- admissions
- retention/student support
- curriculum reform
- student financial aid
- campus environment
- educational and health care partnerships, and cross-cultural education and training.
-
Support students over their educational and career continuum to increase and sustain diversity within and outside the medical school by developing physician leaders in:
- primary and specialty patient care
- academic medicine
- research (i.e., biomedical, clinical, social and behavioral, health services, and health policy)
- public and community service
- Make diversity part of strategic plans to increase diversity among faculty, trainees, students, and staff and create an infrastructure to assure implementation and accountability.
The study was supported by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation and the California HealthCare Foundation.
Philip R. Lee, M.D. Professor of Social Medicine Emeritus, Institute Founder Emeritus, and Chancellor Emeritus (1969-1972) was principal investigator of the study. Patricia E. Franks was project director and co-author with Dr. Lee of the study report. Other members of the study team were Kevin Grumbach, MD, Professor and Chair, Department of Family and Community Medicine, UCSF School of Medicine; Mary P. Sutphen, PhD, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF School of Nursing; and Nancy Rockafellar, PhD, former Director, Oral History Program Department of History, Anthropology and Social Medicine, UCSF School of Medicine.
Read the Executive Summary and Preface to the Diversity Report on our website and read and download the full report at:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0qt8d0j8
The University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, 415/476-9000
|
