William A. Thomson

Increasing access to medical education for students from medically underserved communities: one program's success.

The Premedical Honors College (PHC) is an eight-year, BS–MD program created in 1994 by Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and The University of Texas–Pan American (UT-PA) to increase the number of physicians addressing the health care needs of underserved populations in Texas. The PHC targets South Texas, a 13-county, medically underserved area with a population that is 82% Hispanic. To date, the PHC has had 159 matriculants and 71 graduates, of whom 60 (84.5%) have matriculated into medical school. These results are significant considering that in 1996, only four students from all five South Texas colleges (combined enrollment of 30,000 students) were accepted to medical school. An outcomes study comparing PHC matriculants with students of similar academic ability, ethnicity, and interest in medicine revealed that the odds of medical school matriculation were seven times higher for PHC students than for non-PHC students. The PHCs initial success has been acknowledged by the Texas legislature, which recently passed a bill to promote the PHCs replication. In addition, the number of PHC students—of whom 95% are Mexican American—who matriculate into medical school annually is significant nationally. In 2001, only 386 U.S. medical school matriculants (2.3% of all matriculants) were Mexican American; 17 of these students (4.4%) were PHC graduates. If current trends continue, the PHC could significantly expand the number of physicians serving minority and medically underserved populations in Texas and the nation. Also, the PHC provides an opportunity for research on programs designed to create pathways from high school to medical school.

A baccalaureate-MD program for students from medically underserved communities: 15-year outcomes.

Liaison Committee on Medical Education standard MS-8 requires medical schools to partner with other educational institutions or develop programs to make medical education more accessible to potential applicants from diverse backgrounds. From 1994 to the present, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) have partnered to offer a BS-MD program to increase access to medical education for students from South Texas, a predominantly Latino, largely medically underserved region. Since its inception in 1994, the Premedical Honors College (PHC) has produced 134 medical school matriculants (as of 2008), an average of 12 students per year since 1998, when the first program graduates matriculated to medical school. This represents a significant increase; only 10 students entered medical school from the regions five undergraduate institutions at baseline year 1994, including six from UTPA. Of those matriculating to medical school, through the PHC 110 (82%) are from underrepresented minority backgrounds, and 106 (79%) are Latino. In addition, the program has produced 65 MDs to date; 55 (85%) are Latino. Twenty PHC participants have already completed residency training and are practicing, 12 of those in or near South Texas. As of 2008, 44 were completing residencies or fellowships, 9 in South Texas, and several have expressed a desire to return to South Texas eventually to practice. Six PHC graduates are academic faculty members (four clinical instructors and two assistant professors), all of them Latino. These results suggest that pipeline strategies involving academic partnerships can have a meaningful impact on diversity in medical education.

The Values Scale: Differences across Grade Levels for Ethnic Minority Students.

The present study examined age-level differences in work values as measured by the Values Scale (VS) using national norms. An additional focus of the study was to evaluate whether general population VS norms were applicable to this sample of ethnic minority students. Participants in the study were 323 Hispanic or African American students enrolled in the 9th grade, the 12th grade, or college.

Baylor's program to attract minority students and others to science and medicine

To attract minority students and others to careers in medical practice and biomedical research and to prepare them for such careers, Baylor College of Medicine conducts a variety of summer enrichment programs and other programs to improve how science is presented to students in their preprofessional years from elementary grades through college. These efforts aim to increase the number of competitive candidates for medical school, particularly those from minority groups underrepresented in medicine. They entail close collaboration between the Baylor administration and faculty from Texas public schools and two-year and four-year colleges and universities. The authors discuss the rationale for these programs and comment about the need for institutional commitments of faculty and financial support. They note that these programs are an investment in the future and that longitudinal assessment is needed to determine their ultimate success.

Gender Differences on the Values Scale for Ethnic Minority Students

Participants in the study were 323 Hispanic- and African- American students enrolled in various summer enrichment programs sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine. This sample consisted of 101 males and 222 females who were predominantly African- American and Hispanic-American and had a mean age of 16.70 years (SD = 3.62). All participants completed the Values Scale (VS; Nevill & Super, 1986), a research and counseling instrument that was created to assess intrinsic and extrinsic work values. Work values that differentiated between the male and female minority students in this sample included Creativity, Aesthetics, Altruism, Social Relations, and Life Style, with males placing more emphasis on these values than females. As the VS was normed separately for males and females, differences found in the present study may be due to the cultural differences between the normative sample and the ethnic minorities in the present sample.

Perceived barriers to careers involving math and science: The perspective of medical school admissions officials

The medical community has become increasingly sensitive to the need to expand minority representation in the health professions, given that members of minority populations have poorer health status and use fewer health‐care resources relative to their needs. It has been argued that increased minority representation in the health professions may result in improved access to health care or increased willingness to seek needed care. Recent views suggest that such efforts must begin early in the students’ academic lives. This study solicited perceptions of medical school admissions officials regarding the preparation of students across four ethnic groups. Results suggest two distinct patterns of perceptions distinguishing different combinations of ethnic groups. The predominant discriminant function reflected a generalized perception that Blacks and Hispanics are receiving differentially poorer advisement, assessment, academic preparation, and access to educational resources relative to nonminority students. ...

Attitudes of underrepresented minority students and medical school admissions officials regarding preparation for medical school

Measuring attitudes related to the academic preparation of groups underrepresented in medicine creates special challenges. In this study, we explore the perceptions of 365 minority undergraduate students interested in careers in medicine. The students were attending a special 6‐week summer program at six medical schools throughout the country. Their perceptions are compared with the perceptions of medical school admissions officials, collected using the same instrument in a previous study. Results include comparative views of admissions officials and Mexican American and African American students regarding the educational preparation process, as well as differences inperceptions regarding barriers to medical school confronted by various ethnic groups.