Nowadays, do most black applicants actually want strong skin-color preferences

[Kgizzle]

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First couple of responses, didn't read them all yet:


Wonder how many of your future patients would agree with this contrarian assessment. Many of you said that your college grades and MCAT scores shouldn't matter. If college grades, MCATs, med school performance, and residency all don't matter - than what makes a good doctor? Pigment?

Love your witticism and ability to stay on topic.

Who says the Asian or White rejected in place of a much lower scoring Black applicant wouldn't treat effectively or emphatically? Race has much less to do than economic or geographic preferences when it comes to practice location choices as well. And affirmative action goes well beyond medical school. It's a prime consideration for academic positions for attendings as well. In fact, I've first hand seen a scorned URM residency graduate sue after not being granted an attending position, despite her below-average performance.

Not as good as "golddigger89"

Because AA applicants have the most extreme perverse bias in med school admissions. See readily available stats.

I purposely took much more than I gave. I am absolutely not against URMs. I am simply against the defense of affirmative action for them.

On a new note, I'm reminded of a recent NYT op-ed about research showing vastly different outcomes within different hospitals "Go to the wrong hospital and you're three times more likely to die". In the US, medicine is the only highly-specialized highly-paid field where there is little meritocracy and efficiency beyond the initial grad (med) school admissions process (which has been corrupted by affirmative action). Once you get into a US allo school, there is very little barring you from eventually practicing. And your compensation is much more tied to geography and work-hours than talent or knowledge. It is my belief that that super-subpar applicants, of which affirmative action recipients are the largest group, partially contribute to the bifurcated nature of medical service quality.

Missed you bby it's been awhile

 

[DoctHouse]

I don't see how constantly whining about how URM have advantages getting accepted into medical school is going to help anything whatsoever. Especially in a URM-related forum.

Oh well.

@markcinnn

 

[Dr. In Formation]

obviously it will change eventually if and when it gains considerable public awareness.

This reminds me of a girl and her beef with affirmative action who went all the way to SCOTUS twice. And lost. Twice.

She did gain "considerable public awareness" though.

 

[WhittyPsyche]

Since OP will be persisting with his Anti-AA and Anti-URM rhetoric, I will be reporting this thread. Everyone should do the same.

I tried steering the conversation to something productive to discuss the issue but OP insists on talking about Affirmative Action and that URM applicants are unacceptable "last resorts". This is not the appropriate place for this discussion. And I am sure you knew that when you came to the URM forum to tell URM students and physicians how they are below white and Asian students and physicians. Your attempts to mask your hatred as intelligent discourse is appalling and pathetic.

Take it to SocioPolitical forum if you care so much about public awareness. See TOS.


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[Mellophone5]

Also, the concept of 'equality vs equity', is a major key.

 

[markcinnn]

Since OP will be persisting with his Anti-AA and Anti-URM rhetoric, I will be reporting this thread. Everyone should do the same.

I tried steering the conversation to something productive to discuss the issue but OP insists on talking about Affirmative Action and that URM applicants are unacceptable "last resorts". This is not the appropriate place for this discussion. And I am sure you knew that when you came to the URM forum to tell URM students and physicians how they are below white and Asian students and physicians. Your attempts to mask your hatred as intelligent discourse is appalling and pathetic.

Take it to SocioPolitical forum if you care so much about public awareness. See TOS.


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Really? You tried hard to "steer the conversation to discuss the issue"? Here are your responses in this thread, in order:

And here is where you reveal your true motive...

Reck'd

Wow he pretended like he wanted to know what URMs' own perceptions of themselves were given AA advantage (which first of all AA is not a component of med school admissions, but anyway) and instead goes on a rant about how black students "fail toe to toe" with white/asian students and that black doctors are "lower rung and last-resort providers". Just WOW. WOW. WOW....

He tried really hard to cloak the hate he was harboring towards URM, actually no hate towards black students and doctors SPECIFICALLY, but I guess that ugly has a way of seeping out no matter how hard you try. Hard to believe that a resident believes grades from college is the only qualifier for being a good doctor, and that an A in orgo shows devotion to people and medicine apparently.

I am going to guess you are a pre-med, still not IN yet. Keep your head down and keep working, you are losing "toe-to-toe" with tens of thousands of white, asian, hispanic, black, native american, middle eastern, and every other demographic of people getting into medical school.

One last note, may I remind you all, the TOS for anti-URM and anti-AA is clearly outlined to be saved for the Political Forum. So whoever wants to have that "discussion" should go there instead of trying to come bully, judge, and demean URM students who are minding their own business, working on themselves, and helping each other make it in the healthcare field.

BTW I never said black doctors are lower rung or last-resort providers - I said they could become so (from a demand perspective) if the public were aware of the extremism of affirmative action in med school admissions. Paraphrase me fairly, please. Affirmative action (rightly) increases suspicions of quality or merit on blanket groups without knowing the specifics of any particular individual in that group. Would anyone argue that?

And attacking detractors of affirmative action as harboring hate toward URMs themselves is intellectually dishonest and doesn't bear out anyway in the data: e.g. in a 2012 Pew Research Center study, 62% of Americans disagreed with the statement that we should give "preferential treatment" to minorities, while only 33% agreed. But this wasn't due to some sort of hatred towards minorities or even denial about racism; a similar majority disagreed with the statement that "discrimination against blacks is rare today." (http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/section-8-values-about-immigration-and-race/)

Incidentally, I'm one of the few people who stayed on topic. Here's to getting back on track: Do you think affirmative action increases racial tension or resentment? A recent mic.com article was entitled "Affirmative action in popular with colleges - and unpopular with Americans." Do you think this popularity extends past the med admissions committee themselves, tasked to increase black students? Or do you think the majority of medical academia shares the opinion of most other Americans? Do you think people are free to openly disagree with affirmative action or do you think they fear people like the unsuitably-named "WittyPsyche" will unfairly accuse them of bigotry?

 

[Dr. In Formation]

Do you think affirmative action increases racial tension or resentment?

I think your continued posting here against TOS is increasing racial tension and resentment.

 

[WhittyPsyche]

Really? You tried hard to "steer the conversation to discuss the issue"? Here are your responses in this thread, in order:







BTW I never said black doctors are lower rung or last-resort providers - I said they could become so (from a demand perspective) if the public were aware of the extremism of affirmative action in med school admissions. Paraphrase me fairly, please. Affirmative action (rightly) increases suspicions of quality or merit on blanket groups without knowing the specifics of any particular individual in that group. Would anyone argue that?

And attacking detractors of affirmative action as harboring hate toward URMs themselves is intellectually dishonest and doesn't bear out anyway in the data: e.g. in a 2012 Pew Research Center study, 62% of Americans disagreed with the statement that we should give "preferential treatment" to minorities, while only 33% agreed. But this wasn't due to some sort of hatred towards minorities or even denial about racism; a similar majority disagreed with the statement that "discrimination against blacks is rare today." (http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/section-8-values-about-immigration-and-race/)

Incidentally, I'm one of the few people who stayed on topic. Here's to getting back on track: Do you think affirmative action increases racial tension or resentment? A recent mic.com article was entitled "Affirmative action in popular with colleges - and unpopular with Americans." Do you think this popularity extends past the med admissions committee themselves, tasked to increase black students? Or do you think the majority of medical academia shares the opinion of most other Americans? Do you think people are free to openly disagree with affirmative action or do you think they fear people like the unsuitably-named "WittyPsyche" will unfairly accuse them of bigotry?

Lmao how convenient that you don't quote the very long responses that I made here. Did you even bother to read them? You're done.




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[WhittyPsyche]

If the public was made better aware a black doctor would then (rightly, not because they are black but because of the AA they received) become a lower-rung or last-resort provider.

Hmmm


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[750335]

The thing that is easily the most frustrating about this thread is that it starts out seemingly benign until you read between the lines, and the follow up posts by the OP - and to post it right in a forum which essentially is a hangout for URMs makes it even more cringeworthy. Idk if any of you have been in interracial relationships, where people come to you two like you are some exotic species and tell you how cute your babies will be, till you mention you don't want babies then they look at you like "ummm...okay so why are you with them or vice versa" thereby revealing how it is they really feel.

OP came to this thread with his/her mind made up, so nothing that has been said is being heard essentially making responding to him/her a waste of time. @WhittyPsyche's discussion here is as enlightening as you are ever going to get, and if you still don't get it, you just don't want to get it.

 

[WhittyPsyche]

The thing that is easily the most frustrating about this thread is that it starts out seemingly benign until you read between the lines, and the follow up posts by the OP - and to post it right in a forum which essentially is a hangout for URMs makes it even more cringeworthy. Idk if any of you have been in interracial relationships, where people come to you two like you are some exotic species and tell you how cute your babies will be, till you mention you don't want babies then they look at you like "ummm...okay so why are you with them or vice versa" thereby revealing how it is they really feel.

OP came to this thread with his/her mind made up, so nothing that has been said is being heard essentially making responding to him/her a waste of time. @WhittyPsyche's discussion here is as enlightening as you are ever going to get, and if you still don't get it, you just don't want to get it.

Interracial dating. Yes. Also have so many people tell me how brave we are. And your like ????

Edit: autocorrect -_-

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[Panther_]

I am not sure why you are addressing me as I didn't address you, so I am not sure where you got that I put anything in your mouth as I never bothered to read your post to begin with. However, you completely missed the point in the very first sentence of my post. There is no Affirmative Action in medical school admissions. It is the stated goal of AAMC, and the stated goal of specific medical schools to educate and train physicians to represent the population of the U.S. To bring proper culturally relevant care to minorities and other populations that are in high risk groups and have not received appropriate care for hundreds of years. It is documented that white and asian physician, by and large, do not or refuse to work in various subsets of America which has created severe deficits and what we all call "underserved areas" with a roll of the tongue without really understanding what that means. It has been evidenced that minorities, URM, and at risk groups who become doctors are far more likely to return to their communities and make a change which has been one of the main areas of relieving health care disparities; the people who care about those communities return to help them. The mission is to increase access, make sure culturally relevant access is available to all and to work on achieving healthcare equity.

In nothing you have posted, have you addressed those issues and those reasons are at the core of increasing URM recruitment and acceptance into medical school. Instead I only see "but hey, lower gpa and mcat is acceptable on average for URM and it's a higher bar for Asians".

I strongly believe if someone is truly interested in knowing and understanding the "why" of any question, they would explore all sides of the issue. This means not the superficial parts, not just the parts that pertain to you, not just the parts that make you the benefactor or the one that loses out but all parts. And this is where anti-URM and anti-AA threads become absolutely pointless and contribute nothing of value, because 99.99999% of those who start these threads and participate in them, never take the time to explore every facet of the issue they claim to be arguing about. Instead, they only know about the one thing that personally affects them, which for the vast majority is the GPA/MCAT averages which they feel is a direct slight against them.

-So you know that GPA/MCAT is not the only part of the picture. Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you. So you know disadvantaged students are more likely to have desirable traits in their application that adcoms seek, "the path travelled" and all that. Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you.
-Did you know that URM students, namely hispanic/latino, black, and native american are many times more likely to be economically and socially disadvantaged, therefore making the two groups largely overlapping? Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you.
-You mentioned that you can't see how the two groups could have major differences in the "other" aspects to make that ratio (50% of black to 30% of Asians for example). Well, this is in fact the truth. The medical school applicant pool better represents the middle and upper middle class of society. So just from pure chance, a white and/or asian applicant is far more likely to have come from a two parent household, higher income, better schooling, better opportunities, better everything. While a hispanic/black/native american applicant, is far more likely t come from a poor family, single parent home, bad neighborhood, severely lacking school system, lack of enrichment from early childhood and on. So statistically, yes a black/hispanic/native american applicant is more likely to have things in their application that demonstrate overcoming many obstacles through life in order to get to the point of applying. There are white students that receive acceptances with lower stats who come from these type of backgrounds, your response will be yeah but less often, well there are less often white applicants that represent that group. Have you striated the data to account for the chances of a disadvantaged white who applies with this type of background, rather than the low overall percent chance for all whites who applied? Or do you care to know the difference? Yes? No?
-On that point, did you know that medical school admissions is not a meritocracy? I think you have an inkling here. Do you understand that the goal is to train physicians that meet the needs of the patient population in the US, not to give everyone who had a high GPA a gold star and give them their entitled seat in medical school for doing so?
-You know that those AAMC tables you and everyone else reverts to does not separate the HBCUs, or the Puerto Rican schools both of which sole mission is to provide medical education to minorities, the reason they were created, since you know it was illegal for blacks to get this educations, and later discrimination made it impossible. Yes? No?
Do you understand why that is important? Do you care?
-Did you know these schools take applicants with much lower stats in order to achieve this mission? Yes? No? Do you understand why that is important? Do you care?
-Do you know that on those tables, a total of 4400 black applicants and 5700 hispanic/latino were accepted to medical school, do you know how those numbers are affected by the number of students who were accepted into the aforementioned schools? Yes? No? Does that matter to you?
-Do you know how that would affect the % chances at each gpa/mcat threshold if you ignored the acceptances? Do you know exactly how much of an advantage you would be able to find from each bin, for example how a difference of "45-46% to 32-36%" would be affected? Have you tried to striate that data? Does that matter to you?
-Finally to circle back after going through the nitpicky stuff. You mentioned forced diversity. Do you believe a diverse class in unnecessary? Why? did you know white males used to say the same thing about letting women into medical schools? When women were first allowed to pursue medical education, it was the result of female only medical schools being created with the stated mission of education/training for a female cohort of physicians. They had lower stats than males, they were actively recruited, and in the previously male only schools they were also recruited and accepted at lower standards in order to achieve diversity. Do you see this force diversity of educating women as a negative? Why do we need forced gender diversity, white males were fully capable of caring for women and women of all races at that? Do you support that? Do you realize that is the only reason female patients are now able to choose to see a female doctor? Does that matter to you? It matters to patients.
-Did you know letting asians into medical schools in the US was an act of "forced diversity"? Are you against that? Or is it only when we are forcing diversity for blacks, hispanics and native americans? (Note: if you seriously do not understand the social, emotional, cognitive, and moral advantages of diversity then this conversation would be more of a commitment than I could reasonable bear.)
-Have you looked at any of the research on doctor-patient relationships? Have you seen the data on how white doctors interact with minority patients? Do you know they are less likely to explain pertinent medical information, less likely to discuss negatives and positives of medications and procedures, less likely to take the patient's perceptions, opinions, wants and desires into account than they would with white patients, do you know that they have distinct patterns of what medications to prescribe and what procedures to pursue and what surgical interventions to refer depending on patient race that has nothing to do with any actual scientific evidence that supports choosing a speck protocol for a specific race? Do you know that they tend to spend more time with white patients, assume that the patient is more educated and agreeable (use of standardized patients here so only variable is the doctor's perception) and therefore have completely different visits/follow ups with white patients than black patients.
-Have you looked at outcomes research that shows how the interaction with the physician affects compliance, health outcomes and future help-seeking? Did you know much of the negatives are mitigated when patients see doctors who share their cultural/ethnic background? Or doctors with cultural competence, which is most likely to be the doctor that shares the same background, so essentially the same.
-Biggest question is then do you care that health outcomes for minorities are significantly better when they are able to see a doctor that shares their background? Do you care that this can help healthcare equity, disparities in access, disparities in help seeking, disparities in compliance, disparities in standard and quality of care?

All of these things have to addressed and considered seriously if you truly want to have a "discussion"... and yet we have barely scratched the surface.

This is probably one of the most comprehensive pieces of writing I have read on this site. Shout out to @WhittyPsyche for this informative post.

I usually dodge anti-URM threads. However, after being on the interview trail (I am not sure how you all feel), I do not feel any less qualified than any of the other applicants I have encountered and interacted with. No anti-URM thread can steal our shine, our commitment to helping the communities that need us most and our desire to provide the next generation of URM applicants with useful information and positive affirmations to help them through this often daunting process.

 

[markcinnn]

Lmao how convenient that you don't quote the very long responses that I made here. Did you even bother to read them? You're done.

Hilarious, I know. Somehow I missed it because it was addressed to DannyL and not to me, but I'd love to respond to your points.

I am not sure why you are addressing me as I didn't address you, so I am not sure where you got that I put anything in your mouth as I never bothered to read your post to begin with. However, you completely missed the point in the very first sentence of my post. There is no Affirmative Action in medical school admissions. It is the stated goal of AAMC, and the stated goal of specific medical schools to educate and train physicians to represent the population of the U.S. To bring proper culturally relevant care to minorities and other populations that are in high risk groups and have not received appropriate care for hundreds of years. It is documented that white and asian physician, by and large, do not or refuse to work in various subsets of America which has created severe deficits and what we all call "underserved areas" with a roll of the tongue without really understanding what that means. It has been evidenced that minorities, URM, and at risk groups who become doctors are far more likely to return to their communities and make a change which has been one of the main areas of relieving health care disparities; the people who care about those communities return to help them. The mission is to increase access, make sure culturally relevant access is available to all and to work on achieving healthcare equity.

In nothing you have posted, have you addressed those issues and those reasons are at the core of increasing URM recruitment and acceptance into medical school. Instead I only see "but hey, lower gpa and mcat is acceptable on average for URM and it's a higher bar for Asians".

I strongly believe if someone is truly interested in knowing and understanding the "why" of any question, they would explore all sides of the issue. This means not the superficial parts, not just the parts that pertain to you, not just the parts that make you the benefactor or the one that loses out but all parts. And this is where anti-URM and anti-AA threads become absolutely pointless and contribute nothing of value, because 99.99999% of those who start these threads and participate in them, never take the time to explore every facet of the issue they claim to be arguing about. Instead, they only know about the one thing that personally affects them, which for the vast majority is the GPA/MCAT averages which they feel is a direct slight against them.

-So you know that GPA/MCAT is not the only part of the picture. Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you. So you know disadvantaged students are more likely to have desirable traits in their application that adcoms seek, "the path travelled" and all that. Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you.
-Did you know that URM students, namely hispanic/latino, black, and native american are many times more likely to be economically and socially disadvantaged, therefore making the two groups largely overlapping? Yes? Okay, but that doesn't matter to you.
-You mentioned that you can't see how the two groups could have major differences in the "other" aspects to make that ratio (50% of black to 30% of Asians for example). Well, this is in fact the truth. The medical school applicant pool better represents the middle and upper middle class of society. So just from pure chance, a white and/or asian applicant is far more likely to have come from a two parent household, higher income, better schooling, better opportunities, better everything. While a hispanic/black/native american applicant, is far more likely t come from a poor family, single parent home, bad neighborhood, severely lacking school system, lack of enrichment from early childhood and on. So statistically, yes a black/hispanic/native american applicant is more likely to have things in their application that demonstrate overcoming many obstacles through life in order to get to the point of applying. There are white students that receive acceptances with lower stats who come from these type of backgrounds, your response will be yeah but less often, well there are less often white applicants that represent that group. Have you striated the data to account for the chances of a disadvantaged white who applies with this type of background, rather than the low overall percent chance for all whites who applied? Or do you care to know the difference? Yes? No?
-On that point, did you know that medical school admissions is not a meritocracy? I think you have an inkling here. Do you understand that the goal is to train physicians that meet the needs of the patient population in the US, not to give everyone who had a high GPA a gold star and give them their entitled seat in medical school for doing so?
-You know that those AAMC tables you and everyone else reverts to does not separate the HBCUs, or the Puerto Rican schools both of which sole mission is to provide medical education to minorities, the reason they were created, since you know it was illegal for blacks to get this educations, and later discrimination made it impossible. Yes? No?
Do you understand why that is important? Do you care?
-Did you know these schools take applicants with much lower stats in order to achieve this mission? Yes? No? Do you understand why that is important? Do you care?
-Do you know that on those tables, a total of 4400 black applicants and 5700 hispanic/latino were accepted to medical school, do you know how those numbers are affected by the number of students who were accepted into the aforementioned schools? Yes? No? Does that matter to you?
-Do you know how that would affect the % chances at each gpa/mcat threshold if you ignored the acceptances? Do you know exactly how much of an advantage you would be able to find from each bin, for example how a difference of "45-46% to 32-36%" would be affected? Have you tried to striate that data? Does that matter to you?
-Finally to circle back after going through the nitpicky stuff. You mentioned forced diversity. Do you believe a diverse class in unnecessary? Why? did you know white males used to say the same thing about letting women into medical schools? When women were first allowed to pursue medical education, it was the result of female only medical schools being created with the stated mission of education/training for a female cohort of physicians. They had lower stats than males, they were actively recruited, and in the previously male only schools they were also recruited and accepted at lower standards in order to achieve diversity. Do you see this force diversity of educating women as a negative? Why do we need forced gender diversity, white males were fully capable of caring for women and women of all races at that? Do you support that? Do you realize that is the only reason female patients are now able to choose to see a female doctor? Does that matter to you? It matters to patients.
-Did you know letting asians into medical schools in the US was an act of "forced diversity"? Are you against that? Or is it only when we are forcing diversity for blacks, hispanics and native americans? (Note: if you seriously do not understand the social, emotional, cognitive, and moral advantages of diversity then this conversation would be more of a commitment than I could reasonable bear.)
-Have you looked at any of the research on doctor-patient relationships? Have you seen the data on how white doctors interact with minority patients? Do you know they are less likely to explain pertinent medical information, less likely to discuss negatives and positives of medications and procedures, less likely to take the patient's perceptions, opinions, wants and desires into account than they would with white patients, do you know that they have distinct patterns of what medications to prescribe and what procedures to pursue and what surgical interventions to refer depending on patient race that has nothing to do with any actual scientific evidence that supports choosing a speck protocol for a specific race? Do you know that they tend to spend more time with white patients, assume that the patient is more educated and agreeable (use of standardized patients here so only variable is the doctor's perception) and therefore have completely different visits/follow ups with white patients than black patients.
-Have you looked at outcomes research that shows how the interaction with the physician affects compliance, health outcomes and future help-seeking? Did you know much of the negatives are mitigated when patients see doctors who share their cultural/ethnic background? Or doctors with cultural competence, which is most likely to be the doctor that shares the same background, so essentially the same.
-Biggest question is then do you care that health outcomes for minorities are significantly better when they are able to see a doctor that shares their background? Do you care that this can help healthcare equity, disparities in access, disparities in help seeking, disparities in compliance, disparities in standard and quality of care?

All of these things have to addressed and considered seriously if you truly want to have a "discussion"... and yet we have barely scratched the surface.

There's a long windy list of things. In a very strange "Did you know (some slight against black applicants)....Yes? No?" format. If I misstate anything, let me know.

-GPA/MCAT is not the only thing.
A: Yes, but they are still the two biggest factors by a very wide margin.

-URM and socioeconomically disadvantaged is correlated.
A: Then use socioeconomic disadvantage (actually many schools already do.)

-White/Asian med school applicants are socioeconomically advantaged. Black med school applicants are disadvantaged.
A: Actually both groups are very much advantaged compared to their national in-group averages. Also, again, use socioeconomic disadvantage in admissions.

-Medical school is not a meritocracy. It is to give the most favorable pool of doctors for patients.
A: Obviously it should be (at least) partially a meritocracy considering it being a highly skilled highly trained profession.

-AAMC tables does not parse out HBCUs. They were created in a time when blacks were actively discriminated against (not for with affirmative action). *in the form of several questions.
A: The reasons for their historical creation is irrelevant today. Now, they are fully AAMC accredited US med schools. In terms of professional advantages, they are effectively indistinguishable from other non-top-40 US med schools. Thus, separating them in the AAMC tables is of no interest to me (and besides the standards for blacks at HBCUs is only marginally lower than the standards for blacks at non-HBCUs).

-Do you believe 'forced diversity' is unncessary? Class full of whites? No females, etc?
A: I think you're insulting blacks if you believe that there would be absolutely no black doctors at all, full stop, without affirmative action. Fewer, yes. And without any reasonable questioning of their merits.

-Asians were 'forced diversity' - once not permitted to attend US med schools.
A: Civil Rights Act and the opening up of higher education to non-whites was not about diversity. It was about equality of opportunity (e.g. not banning by race). It morphed into something perverse and extreme later on. Is it possible to NOT go back to actively banning Asians, blacks and females - and yet also NOT advance special treatment for blacks over other non-whites more than half a century after such bans were lifted?

-Doctor-patient relations. White doctors spend more time with white patients. Health outcomes and compliance related to race of doctor/patient. Thus need more black doctors. *in the form of two questions
A: I'll grant you its a possible solution. But fixing discrimination against someone someplace by adding discrimination against someone else someplace else is, at best, an efficient solution and at worst, adding to net inequality.

-Do you care about health outcomes of minorities?
A: Of course I do. And there are uncountable ways to improve minority health outcomes outside of introducing new discrimination. There's actually a whole field dedicated to policy on health outcomes (including of minorities) - public health.

 

[WhittyPsyche]

The fact that you keep talking about Affirmative Action makes it very clear you are here to selective read. (And the fact that you barely responded to any of my points, and the ones you did respond to were vague "but we don't have to discriminate against whites/asians". Quality response.


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[Mellophone5]

Like most have said @WhittyPsyche 's post was all inclusive. OP came here to argue, not to listen. And that is sad.

He seems like one of the people who immediately questions a black doctor's competence simply because of their skin color and how/why HE thinks that person was admitted into medical school in the first. That is sad.

It kind of reminds me of our society at large and how some people feel justified in questioning why a black person is in "their neighborhood" so they stop and question them...are they worthy to be in that neighborhood? Or in that fancy car? Surely, they are up to no good. Or they acquired these nice things by wrongful means. You may not overtly think this way but your posts remind me of this type of logic.

It really boils down to that same idea that black people constantly have to justify themselves for being where they are. And that is sad. And it shouldn't be that way. You want to hold everyone to that same academic standard without accounting for our nation's unrighteousness past of marginalizing groups. These marginalizations do not simply disappear. And just like each school's grading policies are different, so are people's backgrounds. C'mon OP think outside the box.

It seems like OP wants to make this all about numbers and data. Which are important but only one piece of the puzzle.

OP it might be hard for you to understand what is being said mostly because you have dug your heels in your beliefs about the admissions process. It is very easy nowadays to find articles online that support you worldview perfectly. Everything is opinion based now. But I challenge you to be open to understanding the realities of the admissions process (because there aren't a lot of African American docs even now that may be taking "spots" lol) and realize the value of diverse candidates from all backgrounds.

You cannot erase the past simply because it does not overtly affect you. You are not a victim. Likewise, do not expect a marginalized group of people to turn on each other based on GPA when they live and understand the complexities of life that made them marginalized in the first place. Lol.

And also, if you're "PGY-1" why does this even matter to you? You're already a doctor relax lol.

 

[wizkidII]

Really? You tried hard to "steer the conversation to discuss the issue"? Here are your responses in this thread, in order:

BTW I never said black doctors are lower rung or last-resort providers - I said they could become so (from a demand perspective) if the public were aware of the extremism of affirmative action in med school admissions. Paraphrase me fairly, please. Affirmative action (rightly) increases suspicions of quality or merit on blanket groups without knowing the specifics of any particular individual in that group. Would anyone argue that?

And attacking detractors of affirmative action as harboring hate toward URMs themselves is intellectually dishonest and doesn't bear out anyway in the data: e.g. in a 2012 Pew Research Center study, 62% of Americans disagreed with the statement that we should give "preferential treatment" to minorities, while only 33% agreed. But this wasn't due to some sort of hatred towards minorities or even denial about racism; a similar majority disagreed with the statement that "discrimination against blacks is rare today." (http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/section-8-values-about-immigration-and-race/)

Incidentally, I'm one of the few people who stayed on topic. Here's to getting back on track: Do you think affirmative action increases racial tension or resentment? A recent mic.com article was entitled "Affirmative action in popular with colleges - and unpopular with Americans." Do you think this popularity extends past the med admissions committee themselves, tasked to increase black students? Or do you think the majority of medical academia shares the opinion of most other Americans? Do you think people are free to openly disagree with affirmative action or do you think they fear people like the unsuitably-named "WittyPsyche" will unfairly accuse them of bigotry?

Wow this is the most ignorant statement I've read on this forum. I do agree URM status offers an advantage in terms of admissions but who are you to assume minority-physicians in training won't have the same capabilities as their counterparts after medical school? You are effectively insinuating US MD/DO schools are incompetent along with all US-residency programs. Everyone goes through the same training and differences in academic ability are demonstrated by USMLE STEP 1. Subsequently, there are clinical grades, STEP 2, and LORS which all attest to your performance throughout medical school.

You are making outlandish assumptions based on preconceived stigma against AA/Latinos/Native-Americans in admissions. If anything, you have digressed from the topic by challenging US-medical training as a whole.

 

[Kgizzle]

Y'all realize that every time y'all respond my main dude @markcinnn gets off. Honestly let's keep the URM forum positive and leave the trolling and the "discussions" for the pre-allo forum. I need my safe space #triggered

 

[SydSing]

Just check out that person's post history. Obnoxious doesn't even begin to describe them.

You know what I tend to do when I encounter negativity...? I look at all of my interview invite emails and acceptance letters. Then I glance over at that full-tuition scholarship and emit a nice, hearty chuckle while sipping on a peppermint mocha. Because who cares what one ****ty person that is now on my ignore list thinks? I sure as hell don't. Shall we move this party back over to our lovely application thread? I think so.

 

[WhittyPsyche]

Just check out that person's post history. Obnoxious doesn't even begin to describe them.

You know what I tend to do when I encounter negativity...? I look at all of my interview invite emails and acceptance letters. Then I glance over at that full-tuition scholarship and emit a nice, hearty chuckle while sipping on a peppermint mocha. Because who cares what one ****ty person that is now on my ignore list thinks? I sure as hell don't. Shall we move this party back over to our lovely application thread? I think so.

Amen! Back to the party.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[MadLeahPeacecraft]

@markcinnn I'm not sure where in my response you thought I was implying that White or Asian applicants don't have empathy, or efficiency. The point of my response was that patients don't care about test scores or race. What matters to them is how they're treated by their physician.
And while I've got you, perhaps you can answer where Danny L didn't. In looking at your OP I noticed that you're not addressing the other factors that are necessary to get an interview for med schools after submitting your application. So I'll ask you, do you believe Affirmative Action is causing adcoms to ignore all these other factors simply because of an applicants race. I'll list them below for you to review and answer if you can.
I'd really like to know your thoughts.

@Danny L
As I stated above there are many more categories that you're not discussing here that go into a Med school application.
GPA
MCAT Score
Community service (Medical and Non-medical)
Letters of recommendation
Personal statements
Medical/clinical work experience
Leadership experience
Completion of premed requirements
Experience with underserved populations
All these categories factor into acceptance according to the AAMC
https://www.aamc.org/download/261106/data/aibvol11_no6.pdf

 

[MadLeahPeacecraft]

Didn't see this my first run through on replying but if you look at the table I mentioned on my response....

-GPA/MCAT is not the only thing.
A: Yes, but they are still the two biggest factors by a very wide margin.

You'll find that your statement above isn't true. According to the AAMC https://www.aamc.org/download/261106/data/aibvol11_no6.pdf GPA and MCAT scores don't make the top of the list.
Interview recommendations and Letters of Recommendations are 1 and 2 respectively, while GPA is 3rd and 5th on the list and MCAT scores are 6th on the list.

 

[750335]

Just check out that person's post history. Obnoxious doesn't even begin to describe them.

You know what I tend to do when I encounter negativity...? I look at all of my interview invite emails and acceptance letters. Then I glance over at that full-tuition scholarship and emit a nice, hearty chuckle while sipping on a peppermint mocha. Because who cares what one ****ty person that is now on my ignore list thinks? I sure as hell don't. Shall we move this party back over to our lovely application thread? I think so.

Dude, your post is about to be my signature. This is what I came here for.

 

[MadLeahPeacecraft]

@tskiihii
I legit love your freaking taco man. lol

 

[750335]

@tskiihii
I legit love your freaking taco man. lol

OMG I didn't see this and I just changed it hahahaha Making sydsing's post my signature made me feel like I need something more powerful as my icon so it was either beyonce or this haha

 

[Newtonian21]

Eve

I can't really worry about other people like that - I got my own goals and aspirations. And no I can't imagine I "failed in a one-on-one competition" with those other applicants since my stats were in the 99th percentile and I would venture to say the people who had "stronger" stats weren't that academically different than I was.

rone receives thesame medical education, and if a black doc can pass USMLE steps I don't see no difference. There's a reason for AA but I don't like it either. There's a reason why a white applicant would have 3.9 to 4.0 and a black one doesn't. For example most times they didn't grow up same way not that one is intelligibly brilliant than the other. So stop the convo and get back to studying.

 

[eteshoe]

Eve

rone receives thesame medical education, and if a black doc can pass USMLE steps I don't see no difference. There's a reason for AA but I don't like it either. There's a reason why a white applicant would have 3.9 to 4.0 and a black one doesn't. For example most times they didn't grow up same way not that one is intelligibly brilliant than the other. So stop the convo and get back to studying.

I'm not sure if you meant to quote me or the OP

 

[MadLeahPeacecraft]

You guys are right, @WhittyPsyche I'm reporting him too.

 

[Ismet]

You guys are right, @WhittyPsyche I'm reporting him too.

The user was banned yesterday. Not much more can be done.

Closing thread as OP has been banned.