Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:39:58.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Racial Inequalities in Health Care: Affirmative Action Programs in Medical Education and Residency Training Programs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2021

Abstract

This article argues that because racial inequalities are embedded in American society, as well as in medicine, more evidence-based investigation of the effects and implications of affirmative action is needed. Residency training programs should also seek ways to recruit medical students from underrepresented groups and to create effective mentorship programs.

Type
Symposium Articles
Copyright
© 2021 The Author(s)

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Zisk, N., “Why A Consideration of Race Is Important to Medical School Admissions,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 49, no. 2 (2021): 181-189.Google Scholar
Sander, R., “Affirmative Action in Medical School: A Comparative Exploration,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 49, no. 2 (2021): 190-205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kramer, M., “A Timeline of Key Supreme Court Cases on Affirmative Action,” New York Times, March 30, 2019, available at <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/affirmative-action-supreme-court.html?referringSource=articleShare> (last visited January 18, 2021).Google Scholar
See Zisk, supra note 2.Google Scholar
Zisk’s argument is supported by research in primary care medicine. Diversity, and specifically race concordance, has been associated with longer visit times and positive patient affects (Cooper, L. A., Roter, D. L., Johnson, R. I., Ford, D. E., Steinwachs, D. M., and Powe, N. R., “Patient-Centered Communication, Ratings of Care, and Concordance of Patient and Physician Race,” Annals of Internal Medicine 139, no. 11 (2003): 907915, DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-139-11-200312020-00009; R. L. Street, K. J. O’Malley, L. A. Cooper, and P. Haidet, “Understanding Concordance in Patient‐Physician Relationships: Personal and Ethnic Dimensions of Shared Identity,” Annals of Family Medicine 6, no. 3 (2008): 198-205, DOI: 10.1370/afm.821), and historically, nonwhite physicians have been more likely to care for minority populations (E. Moy and B. A. Bartman, “Physician Race and Care of Minority and Medically Indigent Patients,” JAMA 273, no. 19 (1995): 1515, doi:10.1001/jama.1995.03520430051038.)Google Scholar
Newport, F., “Affirmative Action and Public Opinion,” August 7, 2020, available at <https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/317006/affirmative-action-public-opinion.aspx> (last visited November 8, 2020).+(last+visited+November+8,+2020).>Google Scholar
Id. (referencing a Pew research poll from 2019 that found broad support for the importance of the concept of promoting racial and ethnic diversity in the workplace, but also found significant disagreement with the concept of using racial accounting as a means to accomplish that objective. Pew’s question: “When it comes to decisions about hiring and promotions, do you think companies and organizations should take a person’s race and ethnicity into account, in addition to their qualifications, in order to increase diversity in the workplace (or) should only take a person’s qualifications into account, even if it results in less diversity in the workplace?” The results: 74% chose the latter alternative.)Google Scholar
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 325, 343 (2003) (upholding the university of Michigan’s law school’s race-conscious admissions program). Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) (J. Powell, plurality opinion). Fisher v. Univ. of Texas at Austin, 136 S. Ct. 2198, 2213 (2016).Google Scholar
Willon, P., “New Poll Finds Shaky Support for Proposition 16 to Restore Affirmative Action in California,” Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2020, available at <https://www.latimes.com/ california/story/2020-09-16/california-proposition-16-ppic-affirmative-action-poll> (last visited October 1, 2020).Google Scholar
Sander (2021) quotes Present Obama in support of his claim that socioeconomic preferences (and not race) should be considered in admissions policies. This quote is incomplete and could be considered misleading because the Obama administration strongly supported the right of colleges to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions to achieve diversity. Available at <https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/12/05/obama-administration-issues-affirmative-action-guidance-colleges> (last visited May 24, 2021).+(last+visited+May+24,+2021).>Google Scholar
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 325, 343 (2003) (quoting Regents of Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 314 (1978).Google Scholar
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 325, 343 (2003).Google Scholar
Toobin, J., “Gerald Ford’s Affirmative Action,” The New York Times, December 30, 2006, available at <https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/opinion/30toobin.html> (last visited February 17, 2021).Google Scholar
Grutter, 539 U.S. 306, 342 (2003).Google Scholar
See Fisher v. Univ. of Tex., 136 S. Ct. 2198 (2016) (upholding the constitutionality of the University of Texas› race-conscious, holistic admissions program).Google Scholar
Menand, L., “The Changing Meaning of Affirmative Action,” The New Yorker, January 13, 2020. The Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action in higher education have never applied to private companies. (See: J.P. Stevens, The Making of A Justice (New York: Little Brown and Co., 2019): at 401.)Google Scholar
Menand, L., “The Changing Meaning of Affirmative Action,” The New Yorker, January 13, 2020. (discussing Grutter, 539 U.S. 306, 339 (2003).Google Scholar
Grutter, 539 U.S. 306, 342 (2003).Google Scholar
Grutter, 539 U.S. 306, 343 (2003).Google Scholar
See Menand, supra note 18.Google Scholar
See Zisk, supra note 2.Google Scholar
Urofsy, M., The Affirmative Action Puzzle (New York: Pantheon Books, 2020).Google Scholar
See Menand, supra note 18. (discussing Shelby County v. Holder 570 U.S. 529 (2013).Google Scholar
Abudu, N., “Seven Years After Shelby County vs. Holder, Voter Suppression Permeates the South,” Southern Poverty Law Center, June 25, 2020, available at <https://www.splcenter.org/news/2020/06/25/seven-years-after-shelby-county-vs-holder-voter-suppression-permeates-south> (last visited: January 19, 2021).+(last+visited:+January+19,+2021).>Google Scholar
State Voting Bills Tracker 2021, “State Lawmakers Continue to Introduce Voting and Election Bills at a Furious Pace,” Brennan Center for Injustice April 1, 2021, available at <https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/state-voting-bills-tracker-2021> (last visited April 15, 2021).+(last+visited+April+15,+2021).>Google Scholar
Biskupic, J., “How the Supreme Court Laid the Path for Georgia’s Election Law,” CNN, March 27, 2021, available at <https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/27/politics/supreme-court-georgia-voting-law-john-roberts-shelby-county/index.html> (last visited April 15, 2021).+(last+visited+April+15,+2021).>Google Scholar
See Sander, supra note 3.Google Scholar
Danielson, A. and Sander, R., “Thinking Hard About Race,” The University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 47, no. 4 (2014): 967-1020, available at <http://repository.law.umich. edu/mjlr/vol47/iss4/4> (last visited April 5, 2021).Google Scholar
Voorhees, A.S. Van and Enos, C.W., “Diversity in Dermatology Residency Programs,” Journal of Investigative Dermatology Symposium Proceedings 18 (2017): S46-S49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singer, N., “For Top Medical Students, an Attractive Field,” The New York Times, March 19, 2008, available at <https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/fashion/19beauty.html?referringSource=articleShare> (last visited January 26, 2021)(quoting Harvard Professor Dr. Harley Haynes).+(last+visited+January+26,+2021)(quoting+Harvard+Professor+Dr.+Harley+Haynes).>Google Scholar
See Van Voorhees, supra note 30. Discusses statistics that show that only 4.2% of practicing dermatologists self-identify as being of Hispanic ancestry compared with 17.8% (US Census Bureau, 2015b) in the general population and merely 3% or practicing dermatologists self-identify as African Americans compared with 13.3% (US Census Bureau, 2015b) of the population at large (citing G. Bae, M. Qiu, E. Reese, V. Nambudiri, and S. Huang, Changes in Sex and Ethnic Diversity in Dermatology Residents Over Multiple Decades,” JAMA Dermatology 152 (2016): 92-94, doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2015.4441; Pandya, A.G., Alexis, A. F., Berger, T. G., and Wintroub, B. U., “Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Dermatology: A Call to Action,” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 4 (2016): 584-587, doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2015.10.044.Google Scholar
Auseon, A.J., Kolibash, A.J., and Capers, Q., “Successful Efforts to Increase Diversity in a Cardiology Fellowship Training Program,” Journal of Graduate Medical Education 5, no. 3 (2013): 481-485, available at <https://pascal-musc.primo.exlibris-group.com/permalink/01PASCAL_MUSC/btasf/cdi_pubmed-central_primary_oai_pubmedcentral_nih_gov_3771180> (last visited January 31, 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See Auseon, supra note 35, at 485.Google Scholar
Strand, N., “Racial Myths and Regulatory Responsibility,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 49, no. 2 (2021): 231-240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
More information on this topic can be found at E. Ssekasozi, A Philosophical Defense of Affirmative Action (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Charlotte Edwards Maguire Medical Library, available at <https://med-fsu.libguides.com/publishing/narratives> (last visited January 21, 2021).+(last+visited+January+21,+2021).>Google Scholar