I agree with Mandelin Rain on these issues. Systemic racism starts the day people are born and harms people over and over and over again while unfairly benefiting others. White men in particular are repeatedly assumed to be more intelligent (even if not), and assumed to be better leaders than the URM standing next to them, or the female standing next to them, and it literally starts at age 5, and through overt measures and micro aggression they are encouraged, supported, and given opportunities that others have been flat out denied or overlooked, starting literally from TV shows that portray white men as intelligent leaders to the games played (like female toys being house cleaning crap- have you seen a blue toy broom with dinosaurs imprinted on it? Because I haven’t, but how many ****ing pink toy brooms have you seen?) to access to “advanced” classes that start in 3rd grade! You literally teach people from early development to go into a certain life track because of widespread societal and systemic racism and bigotry. I’ve seen women go into early education because they saw 7 million images of females loving children but they shouldn’t have become teachers to 5 years olds because in reality they were never into children that much, they were into some dumb sexist image shoved into their faces repeatedly by society.
Affirmative action may not be perfect but it’s supposed to help mitigate the 18-25+ years of bigotry and sexism people experience. Female attendings still get called nurse by patients and are more likely to be treated poorly by referring physicians and experience micro aggression from staff where the male physicians needs are considered more important (I have seen this happen in residency onwards). A male nurse is paid more and goes up the leadership command much more quickly. So do male therapists. A lot of hospital CEOs actually started out in fields that were “predominantly female” but how many CEOs are females? Few to none. How many chairpersons of academic or private hospitals female?
Part of the push in diversity for fields is for the future anyway. It’s not for you or me. It’s a long range goal.
If a 5 year old black child goes to the hospital and sees a decent number of black doctors- that child learns that he too can be a doctor (and preferably of any specialty). If the black child just sees white and Asian doctor, he may learn while not being able to vocalize it, that it’s not a job accessible to him, so he might not even try. If a girl sees female scientists and physicists, they may as a child pursue games, toys that would help them in 20 years on some exam. It also teaches the teachers of these kids to support them during the education process and give them access to an education that improves critical thinking skills, which helps on some exam, that more and more and more people are saying is irrelavant anyway. I don’t think step 1 or 2 was more relevant than ABR exams.
Thinking about just yourself in this situation is short sighted.
While I understand some frustration about “wealthy” African blacks- they a.) still experience enormous racism even if they are wealthy and b) they still contribute to the black “image” which should be one that black people can do anything white people can do. I do agree with giving even greater priority to LES URM but the problem is proving low income background can be hard, esp once you’re not a minor.
Having said all of this, with the exception of a select few, our field has become irrelevant for medical students. I do believe they are throwing away immense flexibility to frankly not being able to find a job at all by entering this field. Irrelevant is the best word for this. It is an irrelevant occupation. Radiation oncology is no longer a serious occupation for medical students. It hurts terribly to say this but our leadership over the past 10-15 years through lack of foresight and thinking about only themselves, their laziness and their egos, made their own specialty irrelevant.
the catch-22 here is that we harm URMs and females at this point by trying to attract them for them BUT we perpetuate an unfortunate cycle if we don’t attract them. My heart tells me that because I care about the immediate welfare of the current med students(be they black, white, brown, female, male), we educate them very clearly on what our job prospects are now, how this affects their life, does it match their personal and professional life goals, and while we can’t predict the job market in 10 years, we can in 5 years.
Finally once out of residency, private practices and community hospitals don’t care or even have a policy for affirmative action. Therefore, it will be these candidates who are least likely to get good jobs or a job at all.
Tough spot to be in for both them and our field.