Who becomes a physician in this country — and who never gets that chance? It’s a question a lot of medical schools are grappling with, as groups like Black people and Latinos remain especially underrepresented among students. What would it take to attract and retain a more diverse group of students? On this episode, we hear stories about people’s path to med school, and the challenges they face along the way. We learn about a major push to increase diversity that happened in the 90s — and what happened to it; why some are rallying to do away with a…

Communication gaps have existed between ethnicities and racial groups throughout time. However, when those gaps result in a lack of quality health care, people potentially die. Addressing those gaps is the main focus of Dr. Jaya Aysola, the executive director of Penn Medicine’s Center for Health Equity Advancement in Philadelphia. Dr. Aysola’s team has done numerous studies over the years, focusing on implicit biases which exist in doctors and other health care professionals. A recent study suggested ways to fix race-based discrepencies in health care start within their own house. Read more at Fox 43.
According to an analysis led by Penn Medicine researchers, medical school curriculums play a role in perpetuating physician bias. The researchers identified key areas in which curriculum misrepresented race in class discussions, presentations, and assessments. “In medical school, 20 years ago, we often learned that higher rates of hypertension in certain racial and ethnic groups, was due to genetic predisposition, personal behaviors, or unfortunate circumstances. Now we know this is not true. There are no characteristics innate to racial and ethnic groups, biological or otherwise, that adequately explains these differences. They stem, instead, from differential experiences in our society—it’s structural…
Medical schools must consider how they should approach race in their curricula. Institutional racism in medical industries is gradually being recognized as a critical influence in health disparities, inequities, and racial bias. In a recently published paper, researchers asserted that previous medical school curricula focused on biological differences between races that led to racial health disparities, which is incongruent with today’s understanding of health disparities. “In medical school, 20 years ago, we often learned that higher rates of hypertension in certain racial and ethnic groups, was due to genetic predisposition, personal behaviors, or unfortunate circumstances,” Jaya Aysola, MD, MPH, study…