Philly’s med schools are in a unique position to reverse racial disparities in the profession

Philadelphia is a national hub for medical students, with one in six doctors passing through an area medical school at some point in their careers. Local university officials discussed on Tuesday how that makes the city primed to help combat longstanding racial disparities in the profession.

Hundreds of physicians and medical students attended a conference at the National Constitution Center to address how Philadelphia schools can achieve that goal. The conference was the first of its kind in the area, according to organizers with the Independence Blue Cross Foundation, the insurance giant’s charity arm, and the Delaware Valley DEI Consortium, a group of area physicians working to diversify the medical profession.

Leon McCrea, the senior associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Drexel University’s College of Medicine, was pleased to see medical schools that typically compete for top students sharing ideas on how to train more students from different backgrounds.

It’s crucial, he added, that medical schools recruit more students and hire more faculty that reflect the diversity of the American population. Black, Latino, and Native American residents make up 30% of the population, but just under 9% of practicing physicians.

Panelists at the conference, many from Philadelphia-area schools, spoke about the challenges they’d faced in their own journey to become doctors.

Edith Peterson Mitchell, the associate director for diversity services at Thomas Jefferson University’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, recalled an adviser in the early 1970s who refused her entry into a special three-year medical school program, telling her that “you people don’t do well.” She went on to graduate from the program — the first Black student to do so.

“Most schools in the United States only admit a few underrepresented minorities a year,” she said. “We’ve got to increase the number of underrepresented individuals in medicine.”

In smaller discussion panels throughout the afternoon, local medical school officials spoke about how their schools are working to attract and retain a more diverse swath of students.

At Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine, admissions officers are placing greater emphasis on how students connect with the community around the North Philadelphia school: Community members are now involved in interviewing prospective medical students, and have a vote on the school’s admissions committee.

“We want to build connections with the local community, and attract medical students who want to work closely with the community,” said Maria Zimmerman, the school’s associate director of admissions.

Schools have also turned an eye to their own curricula, teaching students to approach clinical care through an anti-racist lens and excising long-taught misconceptions about race and physical health.

“Social determinants of health are huge — environment is unbelievably important. And most [health disparities] that were attributed to race are actually due to environmental influences,” said Dennis Dlugos, an associate dean at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Cherise Hamblin, an ob/gyn and founder of Patients R Waiting, an organization dedicated to improving diversity in the medical profession, helped plan Tuesday’s event. He said diversity initiatives at area medical schools take time and funding and need more support.

“At our institutions we have these beautiful missions, and a lot of times this part of our mission is not funded or supported or bolstered the way that something else is,” she said.