Roughly 8.9 percent of physicians in the workforce identify as underrepresented minorities, including African American, American Indian or Alaska Native and Hispanic or Latino. However, while African Americans comprise 13 percent of the nation’s population, they account for only 4 percent of the physician workforce, according to 2014 statistics released by the Association of American Medical Colleges.
In an effort to recruit more black students into the medical field, Dale Okorodudu, MD, founder of DiverseMedicine, created PreMed Star, an online recruitment tool linking students interested in medicine with admissions officers from medical schools nationwide.
Users create a profile and select schools they want to learn more about. Administrators from those schools then receive an alert indicating a potential applicant would like to know more about their institution. Dr. Okorodudu said about 12 medical schools are registered in the database, which also maintains partnerships with college education companies like Kaplan.
“It’s very difficult to get recruited,” said Dr. Okorodudu. “You try to go to these recruitment fairs that happen all across the country. But that costs time, that costs money and the vast [majority] of students just can’t do that.”
More articles on hospital-physician relationships:
Inaugural class of TCU and UNTHSC medical students to receive free tuition for 1 year
Clemson, Medical University of South Carolina team up on health-related graduate programs
Penn Medicine names chair of surgery department
