HBCU students experience unique barriers to medical school admissions
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Researchers identified three barriers to medical school admission among Black HBCU students.
- Stronger relationships are needed among HBCUs and medical schools to increase representation in the physician workforce.
Students from historically Black colleges and universities experience unique barriers to medical school admissions, including preferential treatment of students from predominantly white institutions, according to study results.
The findings indicate the need for medical schools to build stronger relationships with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to increase representation among medical school applicants and the physician workforce, researchers concluded.
‘History of excellence’
“This research was prompted by the recognition of HBCUs as critical institutions in increasing representation in the physician workforce,” Jasmine Weiss, MD, MHS, FAAP, physician in the department of general pediatrics and adolescent medicine at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Healio. “These institutions have a long history of excellence, particularly for African Americans in higher education, contributing significantly to the number of Black students earning bachelor’s and graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics [STEM] fields and beyond. We aimed to learn more from premedical advisors regarding how they support their students navigating to medical school in hopes of sharing their strategies with others.”
Weiss and colleagues explored the perspectives of barriers to and facilitators of medical school admission experienced by Black students among 26 premedical student advisors at HBCUs. They conducted either semistructured interviews between January 2020 and March 2021 or focus groups in October 2019 among all HBCU advisers. Researchers used an inductive approach to generate codes from one-on-one interviews and focus groups.
The experiences of HBCU premedical students navigating to medical school from the perspective of premedical advisers served as the primary outcome.
‘Highlighting the concerns’
Overall, most advisors were women (69.2%), 50% earned a doctorate degree and 30.8% had more than a decade’s experience as an academic advisor.
Researchers identified three common barriers to medical school admissions experienced by HBCU students: “complex institutional relationship dynamics between undergraduate HBCUs and medical schools, concerns about preferential treatment for students from predominantly white undergraduate schools when accessing clinical shadowing opportunities, and ‘It takes a village mindset’ emphasizing family and peer involvement.”
“It was important for us to help readers learn more about the unique experiences of HBCU students navigating to medical school,” Weiss said. “By highlighting the concerns regarding limited shadowing opportunities and potential differential treatment compared with students from predominantly white institutions, we hope to help start the conversations on how to create solutions for these challenges. Highlighting the importance of strong support networks from peers, family and alumni underscores how HBCUs are significant assets for providing competitive applicants to medical school who will become our future physicians. Medical schools should carefully examine their admissions practices and assess for potential biases when considering applicants from HBCUs.”
‘Valuable’ insight
Based on these findings, Weiss and colleagues now plan to use historical admissions data to analyze trends in medical school acceptance rates for Black HBCU students over time.
“This research, which involves interviewing premedical advisors who support premedical students, is valuable as it provides insights into the daily experiences and challenges these students face during their undergraduate education,” Weiss said. “Our study offers perspective on individual challenges such as obtaining access to clinical experiences or overcoming the financial barriers paying for test preparation or applying to medical school, and the strategies used to mitigate those challenges, such as potentially integrating clinical experiences into the degree requirements. This work allows us to get a closer look at the strategies that HBCU advisors are using to support their students.”
Although the researchers did not specifically investigate gender differences among HBCU students pursuing medical school in the current study, future studies will explore the intersectionality of gender and race for HBCU students seeking medical school admission, Weiss noted.
For more information:
Jasmine Weiss, MD, MHS, FAAP, can be reached at jasmine_weiss@med.unc.edu.
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts