Why aren't black men choosing medicine?

[Doondoo]

In an operating room, Olakunle Idowu -- scrubbed and ready to assist a surgeon about to remove a heart for a transplant -- decided that a medical career was for him.

"That pretty much changed everything I felt. The whole experience of it all," said Idowu, 23, now a second-year medical student at Virginia Commonwealth University. "At that point, I could not see myself doing anything else."

After declines in minority applicants to medical schools in the wake of opposition to affirmative-action initiatives about a decade ago, the numbers have started to rebound.

But improvement is not across the board. Among medical school applicants and students, black women outnumber black men by a ratio of about 2-to-1, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. The number of women, in general, enrolling in medical schools is growing the fastest, but for most other ethnic and racial groups, the male-female ratio of applicants and students is about 50-50. Women make up nearly 70 percent of blacks who apply to and are accepted into medical school. Why aren't black men choosing medicine?

Dr. Wally R. Smith, a VCU expert on health disparities, and others who grapple with the issue say it's a pipeline problem that starts early.

"I think the pipeline gets broken somewhere before the fourth grade," Smith said. "I think that what happens is men, especially men coming from single-parent homes, make the decision they cannot have a career which requires years of sacrifice in school and which ultimately gives them a good income but in order to get to that income, they have to . . . invest a lot of money in their education."


http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193328530&path=%21news&s=1045855934842

[JuniperLea]

1. My internist is black

I'll ask him sometime how many other black people were in his med school.

[tammywammy]

2. I have a close friend in medical school

I'll have to ask her how many are black. I've met quite a few of her fellow students, most of them were white or Indian (she's Indian).

[knitter4democracy]

3. My best friend's husband is a pathologist.

I remember seeing minorities of all kinds in Hubby's med school class and at parties, too. Maybe this is since he was in school (graduated in 2001).

[Quakerfriend]

4. Having worked in several teaching hospitals in north and

west Philly, I have seen some of the best. But, yes, they are few and far between.

Many of the very best MDs I worked with were AA and female. Marie Bernard,MD from Temple Hospital was top notch. I will never forget standing next to her while she spoke with one of our patients- A 28 year old mother of two who had a horrific disease. I had seen many horrific things in medicine but, nothing as sad as this case. I remember feeling comforted by the fact that this young women had another AA women caring for her- taking the time to explain everything and making visits to her room several times each day.

A middle-aged black nephrologist, named Lou, was one of my favorites. He was a high school history teacher before deciding to go back for medical school. He was one of the nicest, most compassionate men I will ever know. He and I became fast friends and collaborated on some research together. We also played tennis as part of a four some. I will never forget him.

He developed a chronic and severe lung condition during the years that I knew him, but he never complained. He did not speak of his illness or his repeated hospitalizations and he never missed tennis, no matter how hard it became to breath. I learned a lot from you, Lou.

I would say (just guessing) that female AA doctors out numbered male AA doctors 25:1, in inner city Phila in the early 1980s.

[shance]

5. Perhaps because they are not allowed access.

One wonders who actually grades the bar exams and MKATs which allow individuals to become doctors these days.

Looking at the discrepency in who is actually allowed into Med/Law school these days, its not such a bad question.

[papau]

6. Black College Wire - college is 1,266,107 black women/ 686,615 black men

Howard University --Female (64%), Male (36%) in 2002

Howard Wants More Black Men in College

By Ayesha Rascoe
Black College Wire

Howard University plans to start a Black Male Student Initiative to address the underrepresentation of African American men on college and university campuses, according to university President H. Patrick Swygert.

Women outnumber men about 2-to-1 among Howard University undergraduates.

The program will focus both on research and on implementing practical measures to increase the number of African American men attending college, he said.

"I intend to organize a group of students, faculty and administrators to really think through what research is telling us and then on the application side, what can Howard do," Swygert said.

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reported in December that 1,266,107 black women were enrolled in higher education, compared with 686,615 black men.

The publication also said it surveyed eight of the nation's most prestigious privately operated coeducational black colleges and universities and found that black women made up a majority of the student body at each.

At Dillard University, women were 78 percent of the student body. At Clark Atlanta and Xavier, women made up more than 70 percent of all students.
Patrick Swygart

"Even at Tuskegee University, which is known for its strong programs in the agricultural sciences (a discipline not considered to be a favorite course of study among women), women are now a majority of the student body," the publication said.

Sixty-five percent of Howard's undergraduates are female and 35 percent are male, Swygert said.

Last summer, Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., the nation's largest black fraternity, said it was developing a national strategic plan aimed at addressing such problems as the low numbers of black males majoring in education and black men's disproportionate health issues.
<snip>


Ayesha Rascoe, a student at Howard University, is editor in chief of the Hilltop. To comment, e-mail [email protected]

Posted Jan. 29, 2007