Diversity in the Health ProfessionsThe sections on diversity for each profession. The reader will reach each one of these when s/he clicks on the given profession on the homepage of the diversity section
Diversity efforts: A list of the AAMC’s efforts on behalf of diversity can be accessed at www.aamc.org/diversity. These initiatives include: *The Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP), a free six-week summer medical and dental preparatory program, co-sponsored with the American Dental Education Association. *A pilot marketing campaign, being developed for launching later in 2006, designed to attract well-prepared minority students to medical careers. The campaign will consist of 1) an interactive Web site and “e-community” to provide students with information and inspiration about becoming a doctor; 2) 2 year pilot marketing campaigns (including campus activities, print and Web advertising, and direct marketing) at four undergraduate institutions; 3) enhanced AAMC communications with minority students who participate in the SMDEP and register to take the MCAT; and 4) a new AAMC database by which AAMC-member schools can view the number of undergraduate majors by race or ethnicity and the “medical school applicant yield” for every U.S. undergraduate institution *The Expanded Medical School Admissions (EMSA) Exercise Working Group which is developing materials for use by medical schools in enhancing the diversity of their classes and implementing an individualized, holistic review process for applicant selection. *Sponsorship of the College Board Access and Diversity Collaborative, which has, over the past two years, brought together legal, admissions, financial aid and higher education leaders to discuss how to lawfully design and implement selection; recruitment, retention and outreach; and financial aid and scholarship policies and procedures that will help achieve schools’ diversity goals.
Aspiring Doctors Website: ADEA Diversity efforts: Health Professions Advisors will be invited to participate in the Diversity and Access to Dental Careers Conference (DADC) will be held in Baltimore at the Wyndham Inner Harbor Hotel on December 7- 9, 2006. Its theme is "Courageous Leadership---Breaking Through the Barriers." The conference will consist of plenary sessions and best practices workshops. The Conference will lead off with an extremely renowned speaker on diversity management, Dr. Roosevelt Thomas, CEO of R. Thomas Consulting & Training, Inc., and President of The American Institute for Managing Diversity, speaking on diversity in the business World. Other plenary sessions will include Dr. James Johnson from the University of North Carolina School of Business on the demographics of diversity and Mr. Marc Nivet of the Macy Foundation on the role of foundations in diversity and access. There will be a panel discussion led by deans of dental schools concerning leadership in diversity from the top. Best practices workshops will center on topics concerning collaboration between medicine and dentistry for diversity, educational benefits for diversity, minority faculty development, centers to reduce disparities, recruitment and retention efforts, the effect of the millenials in recruiting a diverse class, enrichment programs, and the role of admissions committees in diversity led by experts in these areas. DADC conference and registration information will be on the ADEA website, www.adea.org. in the very near future. a. Summer Medical Dental Education Program (SMDEP), funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, $18.4 million; administered jointly by ADEA and AAMC b. ADEA / W.K. Kellogg Foundation Minority Faculty Development Grant, $2,4 million. c. ADEA/ W.K. Kellogg Foundation Access to Dental Careers (ADC) Program, $1.1 million. d. California Endowment Dental Pipeline Initiative (CE), a $500,000 award to ADEA for ADC grants to California dental schools. e. Diversity outcomes: · Minority enrollment at U.S. dental institutions has risen to12% · 10.7% of all full-time dental faculty are underrepresented minorities · 75 underrepresented minorities are in administrative positions in dental institutions: 5 deans, 22 associate or assistant deans, 32 department chairs, 16 program directors · There are 56 diversity administrators in U.S. dental schools
Enhancing Diversity. AACN is focused on diversifying the nurse faculty population by creating new scholarships specifically for students from underrepresented minority groups who wish to pursue a graduate nursing education and teach. Two programs were created over the past year including the Monster Healthcare-AACN Nursing Faculty Scholarship and the California Endowment-AACN Nurse Faculty Scholarship. The Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO) and its member institutions have embraced the concepts of diversity and multiculturalism in optometric education and in the profession. ASCO bases its diversity program on several assumptions including: (1) Greater diversity among health professionals is associated with improved access to care for our diverse society, greater patient choice and satisfaction, better patient-provider communication, and better educational experiences for all students, which will prepare them for the diverse communities they will serve in practice, (2) Diversity is good for optometric education and the profession, and (3) It is the right thing to do. ASCO has completed the first two phases of its diversity initiatives and is about to embark on the third phase, greater effort towards student diversity and the development of cultural competence module that can be integrated into optometric education both at the classroom and clinical levels. The first phase was a series of multicultural/diversity symposiums conducted at schools/colleges of optometry. The symposiums were designed to assist optometry colleges/schools in creating, fostering and maintaining an institutional climate that welcomes and embraces diversity and encourages an environment of multiculturalism. The second phase, the multicultural/diversity mini-grants provided seed money for a specific project; it was designed to assist the schools/colleges of optometry with their long-term diversity /multicultural efforts.
AACP is actively involved in promoting a diverse student body and cultural competence in the pharmacy curriculum. Pharmacy students must learn to understand the needs of individuals of varied ethnic and cultural origins so that they can effectively communicate with and counsel their patients. AACP collaborated with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) on a webcast "Cultural Competence in Health-Professions Training: Considerations for Implementation” in May 2005. The 2006 AACP Interim Meeting content was also devoted to cultural competence and closing the gaps of health disparities. It provided insights to assist pharmacy educators with changing their programs to reflect this new sensibility. During the Interim Meeting AACP partnered with the leading Spanish-language communications company in the US to host a medication brown bag review and health screening in which pharmacy students and faculty provided screenings and medication information for an estimated 1000 attendees. AACP and other associations will offer a four-day interprofessional institute in January 2007 designed to help health professions education faculty and administrators inculcate cultural competence into health professions curricula. Diversity Efforts Key efforts in expanding diversity within the profession and as related to physical therapy education include:
Schools of public health are concerned with recruiting underrepresented minorities into their student population; however the biggest challenge is having a diverse faculty. 33.8% percent of students were members of minority groups
Minority students constituted
25.2 percent of U.S. students in 1995 compared with 33.8 percent in 2004. In
2005, foreign nationals constituted 15.0 percent of the total student body.
Schools of Public Health and American Indian/Alaska Native Communities (originally published in the December, 2005, Advisor) DiVersity Matters The DiVersity Matters initiative of the AAVMC continues to raise awareness about the importance and need for increased racial and ethnic diversity within veterinary medicine. In the first full year of the initiative, the percentage of underrepresented minority students in US colleges of veterinary medicine grew by over .5 percent. More concrete data is also collected concerning faculty within the colleges. The Association continues to increase visibility in
communities of color by exhibiting at national conferences, hosting career fairs
and developing targeted informational brochures including the new, “Caring for
Your Community” brochure which features African American veterinarians and
veterinary students. Upcoming DiVersity Matters projects include the release of
findings from the benchmarking survey conducted earlier this year and a mailing
of the Veterinary Medical School Application Requirements book to
targeted minority serving institutions. More information about the initiative
can be found on the DiVersity Matters page of the AAVMC website,
www.aavmc.org. |