Minority issues in gastroenterology training

MINORITY ISSUES IN GASTROENTEROLOGY TRAINING (Charles D. Howell, MD) African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, mainland Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans are underrepresented in medicine relative to their percentage of the U.S. population. Together, these groups accounted for 20 % of the population in 1993, but only 11% of the U.S. medical school entering class that year. Approximately 5 % of minority medical school graduates pursue specialty and subspecialty training in Gastroenterology. Thus, minority underrepresentation in gastroenterology reflects the proportionately low numbers of minorities entering medical schools and entering the subspecialty. Other impediments to increased minority representation in gastroenterology include: 1. Poor representation of minorities among medical school faculty and academicians (lack of minority role models and mentors). 2. Potential for diminished access to training and careers in gastroenterology when number of training slots are decreased by graduate medical education and health care reform. The necessity for ethnic diversity in medicine (including gastroenterology) include: 1. An increasing percentage of underrepresented minorities entering the work force. 2. The need and increasing demand for culturally sensitive, high-quality medical care providers.

632

GASTROINTESTINAL ENDOSCOPY

3. Poor health status of minorities coupled with the increasing focus on their health care needs and their need to be included in clinical research studies. 4. Social and economic equity. Failure to address this issue may have negative long-term implications for funding of medical schools and other institutions that depend on public support. Thus, to increase the percentage of minorities in gastroenterology, efforts must first seek to increase the numbers of well-prepared applicants to U.S. medical schools. One program, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Project 3000 by 2000, seeks to enroll 3000 minorities in the first-year medical school class by the year 2000 (a 38 % increase compared to 1993). This project involves partnerships between health science centers and high schools/colleges to improve the quality of premedical education and to increase the numbers of competitive minority medical school applicants. To increase the number of minority physicians in medical school faculty/biomedical research careers, several foundations and federal agencies have created postdoctõral fellowship and early career development awards for highly qualified minority candidates. The GLC must actively support such efforts and establish long-range programs to specifically increase representation of minorities in gastroenterology.

V O L U M E 41, NO. 6, 1995