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deleted987519
Be honest.
How Important Is It For You to Study Medicine with a "Diverse" Class
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deleted972488
I can already tell this thread is going to be problematic.
As someone who is a minority in multiple respects, I prefer welcoming and inclusive learning environments.
As someone who is a minority in multiple respects, I prefer welcoming and inclusive learning environments.
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deleted987519
Everyone does. I guess I don't know what they are expecting people to say in these essays...
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deleted972488
Surely you’ve interacted with people who are different than you. Talk about that and how it contributed to your learning and growth and how you would like to continue learning from other people.
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deleted987519
Yeah, thanks. I'm just getting burned out from writing about diversity...how I'll add to it, how I'll benefit from it, etc. Maybe it's time for a break haha. Thanks again.
Make sure to include that in your secondaries.
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Look, I’m just saying that a person’s race/sex/whatever has no bearing whether or not I like or dislike a person or function in school.
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@OxenFoxen You're not burned out, you just realize that this is a hoop that you have to jump through. Unfortunately this is the first of many. Implicit bias awareness, unconscious bias training, and all this hoopla over recognizing minorities in medicine is 90% CYOA material for hospitals/schools to not get a lawsuit because they tried to educate the ills of racial ignorance with a 35 minute Ted Talk on YouTube when a staff member goes on twitter and ruins their entire career. The worst is that URMs are the most discriminated by actions like affirmative action which assume that they need a boost at every level of the education in order to make it to the same extent as other model minorities. It's tongue in cheek that you have to write about one form of diversity e.g. life accomplishments, experiences when you honestly know they are grouping applicants in their automated pools by race/ethnicity. But it's a hoop and you have to jump through it.
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It is important so that multiple varying perspectives can approach the same problem from different angles.
Take the case of the old Chinese woman with recurrent ear irritation and infection. As her physician, you cannot seem to understand why it keeps happening. You tell your First generation Chinese coworker. Instantly she knows “it is the ear picks she is using for ear wax.” Dumbfounded that you did not know this Chinese cultural practice, you approach your patient with the solution. What do you know, that’s the issue! Patient didn’t know it was an issue, now you are aware of their cultural practices thanks to a different cultural perspective.
Take the case of the old Chinese woman with recurrent ear irritation and infection. As her physician, you cannot seem to understand why it keeps happening. You tell your First generation Chinese coworker. Instantly she knows “it is the ear picks she is using for ear wax.” Dumbfounded that you did not know this Chinese cultural practice, you approach your patient with the solution. What do you know, that’s the issue! Patient didn’t know it was an issue, now you are aware of their cultural practices thanks to a different cultural perspective.
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@OxenFoxen @MemeLord I acknowledge this, but it's also overrated. Medical education includes consideration of race when it comes to diagnosing acute onset of SCA or genetic tests needed for r/o Tay Sach's. It's not like you're going to be less sensitive to these diseases by not being black or Jewish and it's absurd that your Family Medicine or Hospitalist would be more adept at coming to this diagnosis by being of the same race. This is the same flaw that pregnant patients apply when it comes to requesting for a female OBGYN over a male OBGYN despite a recent feedback that patient perception of quality of care was more positive on many criteria with male physicians when it came to factors like pain management and progression of care. Despite this, you will find yourself outside of the room more often than not as a male medical student.
The mindset that has often been pushed by adcoms in schools is the notion that selecting for URMs from underprivileged neighborhoods is going to encourage them to go back to those neighborhoods and become role models. Which is hilarious, because there has been no official post-analysis that these students actually follow such inclinations because in all likelihood such a report would show that such ideas are post-mortem.
More often than not, the people who enter into non-profit medical practice or are interested in changing the structure of medicine to benefit the underprivileged are doing so out of philosophical commitment and not because they necessarily come from underprivileged circumstances. It's been far more common to me that people who were SES minorities choose more lucrative specialties with minimal patient interaction because they have "made it" to their credit and are running with the opportunity to do derm/ortho what have you.
My grandfather who was an OBGYN chose to join an NGO and went to areas of civil strife in Africa in order to prevent double deaths due to poor sanitation. He did that for years. He told me it was the best experience of his life, but no one in their right mind would want to do what he did. Also, he wasn't remotely african american or was raised in poverty, he did face several struggles in becoming a physician which made him become sympathetic towards joining an NGO with such a mission. Schools attempting to select for these candidates based on written mission statements and short interviews to me is an absolute joke. To me, this is one of the first of many b.s. hoops and this is coming from someone who is a minority in their current profession.
The mindset that has often been pushed by adcoms in schools is the notion that selecting for URMs from underprivileged neighborhoods is going to encourage them to go back to those neighborhoods and become role models. Which is hilarious, because there has been no official post-analysis that these students actually follow such inclinations because in all likelihood such a report would show that such ideas are post-mortem.
More often than not, the people who enter into non-profit medical practice or are interested in changing the structure of medicine to benefit the underprivileged are doing so out of philosophical commitment and not because they necessarily come from underprivileged circumstances. It's been far more common to me that people who were SES minorities choose more lucrative specialties with minimal patient interaction because they have "made it" to their credit and are running with the opportunity to do derm/ortho what have you.
My grandfather who was an OBGYN chose to join an NGO and went to areas of civil strife in Africa in order to prevent double deaths due to poor sanitation. He did that for years. He told me it was the best experience of his life, but no one in their right mind would want to do what he did. Also, he wasn't remotely african american or was raised in poverty, he did face several struggles in becoming a physician which made him become sympathetic towards joining an NGO with such a mission. Schools attempting to select for these candidates based on written mission statements and short interviews to me is an absolute joke. To me, this is one of the first of many b.s. hoops and this is coming from someone who is a minority in their current profession.
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deleted987519
Seems like a push by white people to make them feel like they are doing something good
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907914
No, but seriously it is an attempt at doing right by the patient and the workplace.
Not medicine, but diversity has been shown to increase productivity in the workplace
Workforce Diversity: A Key to Improve Productivity
Workforce diversity means similarities and differences among employees in terms of age, cultural background, physical abilities and disabilities, race…
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It wasn't a top priority for me when choosing schools; however, I certainly appreciated the opportunity and value of learning alongside a diverse group of incredibly intelligent and passionate people. Diversity transcends just socioeconomic status, and includes those with different talents, cultures, training, etc. In my opinion, a diverse learning environment does make for more well-rounded and culturally-sensitive physicians.
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@OxenFoxen I don't think you can really simplify affirmative action or concepts of it being applied into such a simple line of thinking.
I will state that medicine should be more about figuring out how to select for elements of future competence in a clinical setting, which I think goes almost completely unaddressed in the selection process of medical students. I think that selection teams for schools are too understaffed, too busy, and are too stressed on logistics to really identify the diverse in diversity and end up selecting for a candidate with the last name Mbaku rather than taking into account that they were raised in a middle class home in Hoboken New Jersey rather than the plains of Nigeria.
I will state that medicine should be more about figuring out how to select for elements of future competence in a clinical setting, which I think goes almost completely unaddressed in the selection process of medical students. I think that selection teams for schools are too understaffed, too busy, and are too stressed on logistics to really identify the diverse in diversity and end up selecting for a candidate with the last name Mbaku rather than taking into account that they were raised in a middle class home in Hoboken New Jersey rather than the plains of Nigeria.
