It was early 2013 and I was sitting in my 2nd floor, 1 bedroom apartment when I received a phone call from my brother Dr. Dale. “Did you read that AAMC report bro,” he said. Right then, I knew my brother was up to something. Something very big.
The next day, Dr. Dale and a 4th year medical student, Simon knocked on my door and the three of us walked downstairs to my apartment lounge to film the first ever Black Men In White Coats video. We propped up a cell phone camera and laptop and began filming the 36 minute impromptu discussion on the dearth of black males applying to medical school. In no time, the video spread around our Duke campus and across the internet. Our goal was to shed light on this very serious issue. The number of black males applying to medical school was less in 2011 than it was in 1978. Since then, we have received a number of honors and seen a movement growing as groups and books with similar themes of “black” and “white coat” began to appear. I’m very grateful Dr. Dale stepped up and took on this challenge.
The purpose of Black Men in White Coats has always been to highlight a significant problem that affects the healthcare system and to motivate the next generation through inspirational documentaries, podcasts, and books. However, motivation can only take one so far. This is why we created DiverseMedicine.org to reach and be more personal to diverse groups prehealth students and offer mentoring and shadowing opportunities. This was a very powerful platform that connected physicians with students across the nation.
It has been awesome seeing so many students we met years ago now completing medical school and entering residency. However, there were those students that unfortunately did not make it to medical school. They always stay on the back of our minds. The ones that really hurt were the those that would have been amazing doctors if someone took a chance on them or even simply got to know them a little better. On the other hand, there were some medical schools struggling to find or maintain a diverse, well-rounded student body. How could a small medical school in a less well-known town in Montana ever come across Maria who is from the Bronx? Something needed to be done to allow these students to showcase themselves holistically and for the medical schools to reach out to these students. Kind of like a match.com for med school. This was the beginning of PreMed STAR which subsequently expanded to Diverse Medicine Recruitment Center. We’ve been privileged to partner with organizations like AMSA, SNMA/MAPS, AQuity Solutions, and Kaplan who allowed us to give out roughly $20,000 worth of MCAT prep scholarships to our community students in 2018.
The Future
We are now part of something huge! I am super proud to be a part of this and I hope you are too. It is truly an honor to provide guidance to so many students. We are building a powerful, supportive community where premedical students can have a safe space to ask questions, share tips with one another, vent, and receive solid guidance from schools, med students and doctors. This is a very unique platform that has already helped a number of students in fulfilling their dreams of becoming a doctor. Our community is rapidly growing everyday with more and more students and medical schools joining. This is very exciting! We’ve come a long way and there are even greater things to come. I strongly encourage every premed student reading this to:
1. Complete and update your profile page
2. Invite your premed friends and clubs to join
3. Be active and share resources with your peers
4. Reach out to our partnering schools
5. Let us know how we can improve
The community can only help as much as you allow it to help you. Get involved and take full advantage of this opportunity. We can do this together!
Are you a premed? Join Diverse Medicine now. It's free!