Oscar Paniagua-Morales is a sophomore at Mesa State College and aspires to go to medical school and become a physician. He would like to specialize in nephrology to learn more about his kidney disease and help others who are going through the same issues. Paniagua-Morales is attending the Symposium as part of its Symposium University program.
"A physician's role is to improve the health of his patients," said Pedro Jose Greer, MD, an acclaimed doctor who has won several awards for his dedication to improving health care in the United States. This morning, he gave the audience at the Colorado Health Symposium his views on health care and the tremendous shortage of minority students entering medical school. Dr. Greer also pointed out that 70 percent of students entering medical school in this country have family incomes of a quarter million dollars. In my opinion, this statement implies that minority students from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to medical schools are having a hard time getting in, and according to Dr. Greer, this is not likely to change in the coming years.
In my experience as a Latino student, one of the problems students from disadvantaged backgrounds face when applying to medical school, is that some of them did not get the tools needed to succeed in their early school years. I don't think this problem starts in college but during high school, when students are at greatest risk of dropping out due to factors like having to work to help support the household, or getting pregnant in their teen years. If the student manages to make it to college, he still has a very steep mountain to climb. He must keep focused and determined to do well in school in order to be competitive for medical school admissions. He must break out of his expectation that if his parents did not go to school, he shouldn't either; or if his parents got by working low paying entry-level jobs, then, he doesn't need to attend school.
The lack of role models in the Latino population makes it harder to even think of some day becoming a physician. I must emphasize that we do have successful Latino role models in the United States but they are still in the minority. We have excellent role models like Dr. Greer from Florida and Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa from Johns Hopkins, who have amazing backgrounds that inspire students today, but we need more people like them. In addition, the U.S. government, the nonprofit organizations, and the medical schools, need to create and continue to support programs that can help minority students reach medical school.
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