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Abstract
A racially and ethnically diverse health care workforce remains a distant goal, the
attainment of which is contingent on the inclusivity of the national medical student
body. We examined the diversity of medical school applicants and enrollees over the
past four decades with an eye toward assessing the progress made. Data on the gender
and race or ethnic group of enrollees in all medical doctorate degree-granting U.S.
medical schools from 1978 through 2019 were examined. The percentage of female enrollees
doubled during this period, and women now constitute more than half the national medical
student body. This upturn has been attributed largely to an increase by a factor of
12 in the enrollment of Asian women. The corresponding decrease in the percentage
of male enrollees, most notably White men, was offset by an increase by a factor of
approximately 5 in the enrollment of Asian men. The percentages of enrollees from
Black, Hispanic, and other racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented in medicine
remain well below the percentages of these groups in the national Census.
[1
]From the Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, RI (D.B.M., P.A.G.,
H.A.M., A.L.M., E.Y.A.); and the Association of American Medical Colleges, Washington,
DC (A.G.).