Proportion of black males in US medical schools dropping

(HealthDay)—The proportion of black males in medical school is decreasing, according to a report published by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

Researchers from the AAMC examined medical education diversity, focusing on black males.

According to the report, in 2011, 2.5 percent of medical school applicants were black men, a decrease from 2.6 percent in 2002. During the same period the proportion of Asian and Hispanic male applicants increased by 9 and 11 percent, respectively. Black women accounted for two-thirds of black medical school students, and 63 percent of new black doctors in 2011 were women. During the last decade there was a 3 percent increase in the total number of male African-American medical school graduates, but the proportion of new black male doctors decreased from 2.6 percent in 2002 to 2.4 percent in 2011. Only 6 percent of 2011 matriculants were black, as are only 4 percent of practicing doctors, although African-Americans account for 13 percent of the U.S. population. Disparities begin early, with women accounting for nearly two-thirds of black students to earn bachelor's degrees and only 52 percent of male African-Americans earning a high school diploma, compared with 58 and 78 percent of male Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites, respectively.

"We have a major, major problem in this country," Marc Nivet, Ed.D., the AAMC's chief diversity officer, said in a statement. "There is just simply an enormous amount of indisputable evidence that we're not intervening as effectively as we'd like as a society to increase the talent pool of African-Americans who are capable of taking advantage of the science curricula available up and down the pipeline."