Diversity in Medical Schools—Need for a New Bold Approach

Key Points Question What are the projected estimates of the number of African American students who would have graduated from historically Black medical schools that were closed during the period surrounding the publication of the 1910 Flexner report? Findings In this economic evaluation of 13 historically Black medical schools that were closed and 4 historically Black medical schools that remained open after the 1910 Flexner report, an extrapolation based on data from the medical schools that remained open indicated that 5 of the closed medical schools might have collectively provided training to an additional 35 315 graduates by 2019. If these 5 closed schools had remained open, they could have produced a 29% increase in the number of graduating African American physicians in 2019 alone. Meaning The study’s findings suggest that consideration should be given to the creation of medical education programs at historically Black colleges and universities in an effort to increase the number of African American graduates from medical schools and the number of African American physicians in the workforce.