Improving diversity would improve patient care through better communication, cultural competency, and improved access. Improving diversity would improve the profession by consistently attracting the best medical students and promoting innovation through a diversity of backgrounds and ideas...
...Patients with race-concordant doctors report that they are better able to participate in decision making with their doctor...
...A key component of effective communication is cultural competency. This is the ability of providers to deliver health care that recognizes the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients...
...Although US medical schools’ gender composition matches the population fairly closely, their racial diversity does not. Asian American students are overrepresented in medical school compared with their share of the general US population at 21%. African American students make up only 5.7% of US medical students, and Hispanic/Latino students make up 5.4%. Native Americans are severely underrepresented, even considering their small share of the US population, at 0.1%. White students are slightly underrepresented at 56%. Recent trends show that the diversity in medical schools is not improving. From 2005 to 2014, the total number of medical school graduates increased by 17.4%, whereas the number of African American and Hispanic/Latino graduates decreased by 5.5% and 37.4%, respectively...
31084836.Ramirez RN, Franklin CC. Racial Diversity in Orthopedic Surgery. Orthop Clin North Am. 2019 Jul;50(3):337-344. doi: 10.1016/j.ocl.2019.03.010. PMID:
