Understanding the Role of Medical Schools in Medical Workforce Diversity
AACOM is changing the narrative about medical school to say that a career as a physician is for everyone, a key step in promoting medical workforce diversity.
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By Sara Heath
- The health equity push is permeating all aspects of the medical industry, with even medical schools looking at how it can improve its recruitment tactics to make for medical workforce diversity.
According to Dr. Robert Cain, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), achieving that level of workforce diversity is an urgent issue. After all, mounting evidence shows that when patients can visit with a doctor who looks like them or is the same race—something that is only possible with a diverse workforce—patient experiences are better.
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“Trust is a foundation of the doctor-patient relationship,” Cain said in an episode of the Healthcare Strategies podcast. “If we don't have trust, the rest of it really doesn't work well. And that trust hopefully creates a few things, a connection to the patient and greater awareness, through deep listening and the things that it takes to develop that trust.”
But getting toward that diverse medical workforce can pose a challenge. While hospitals and health systems do need to prioritize health equity during the hiring process, that can be stymied when they have don’t have a diverse applicant pool. Getting that diverse applicant pool requires diverse medical school classes; and getting to diverse medical schools requires another diverse applicant pool.
AACOM is trying to tackle that by making it known that a career in medicine is possible for everyone, Helene Cameron, PhD, AACOM VP for Undergraduate Medical Education and Recruitment said on the podcast.
“There still is that misunderstanding, if you would, that medicine may not be open for all people, especially if you spent your entire life going to a doctor that doesn't look like you,” Cameron explained.
Through marketing, messaging, and recruitment, AACOM and its medical schools are helping to change the understanding of what constitutes the typical medical student. There is more than one way to become a doctor, Cameron stated, and that can include becoming a doctor of osteopathy or coming from an underrepresented background.
One way AACOM is making that point is through high school outreach.
“It starts early. You do not decide, most people don't decide, to become a physician their senior year in college when they're two weeks away from graduation and trying to figure out what their next move is,” Cameron pointed out. “And so, we are trying to find ways to strategically introduce the profession to young students, so that they can have time to make decisions about what direction they want to go in.”
