Applying to DO, simple question.

[Madsieb]

Hi all, I'm going to be applying to DO this year and was curious to understand why everyone thinks people from south america are not URM. I contacted the AAMC and they were very specific that URM is as they said on their website...

"Underrepresented in medicine means those racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population."

^ This includes many of those from South America from what their diversity committee told me.


MOST people keep referencing this when they speak about URM, but this is an out dated definition replaced with the one above.

Before June 26, 2003, the AAMC used the term "underrepresented minority (URM)," which consisted of Blacks, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans (that is, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), and mainland Puerto Ricans. The AAMC remains committed to ensuring access to medical education and medicine-related careers for individuals from these four historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.

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[Goro]

It's up to medical schools to define with URM means. To some schools, Cambodians and Laotians (Hmong) count as URM, but not at others. Ditto for Cubans or Puerto Ricans.

My learned colleague @gyngyn reports that, say, Brazilians and Columbianos are not URM. I defer to his sage counsel.

 

[Madsieb]

It's up to medical schools to define with URM means. To some schools, Cambodians and Laotians (Hmong) count as URM, but not at others. Ditto for Cubans or Puerto Ricans.

My learned colleague @gyngyn reports that, say, Brazilians and Columbianos are not URM. I defer to his sage counsel.

Yes, What schools decide is entirely up to their own admissions policy, but for AAMC their policy is more broad, some colleges may consider a group URM some may not. This distinction process is more tedious than necessary.

 

[DoctorSynthesis]

It's up to medical schools to define with URM means. To some schools, Cambodians and Laotians (Hmong) count as URM, but not at others. Ditto for Cubans or Puerto Ricans.

My learned colleague @gyngyn reports that, say, Brazilians and Columbianos are not URM. I defer to his sage counsel.

Goro how does your school view what is URM?

 

[Goro]

Alas, that's the realm of our wily old Admissions dean.

Goro how does your school view what is URM?

 

[DoctorSynthesis]

Alas, that's the realm of our wily old Admissions dean.

It seems like osteopathic schools view URM differently based on the numbers. Seems like only African american gets a boost. Based on what you seen from interview invites do you believe that to be accurate?

 

[Goro]

At our school, "hispanics", whatever that means to the dean, do get noted as well. To get back to Op's question. I don't know if Brazilians etc count the same as, say, Puerto Ricans or Mexicans, to name two.

It seems like osteopathic schools view URM differently based on the numbers. Seems like only African american gets a boost. Based on what you seen from interview invites do you believe that to be accurate?

 

[Bones 2020]

Again, it's the percent of South American med students/doctors compared to percent South American in the population. Here's an interesting page describing the shift in population here http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/south-american-immigrants-united-states