Fewer Minorities Apply to UC Medical Schools

The number of blacks, Latinos and Native Americans applying to University of California medical schools has dropped by 22% in the last year, according to a recent announcement by a UC official.

The drop is thought to be due in part to the UC regents’ vote to forbid consideration of race or ethnicity in UC admissions and by Proposition 209’s passage last year, banning race and gender preference in the state school system.

“One can infer that at least part of the decline has to do with the climate that has been established in California . . . a climate that we’re going to have to work very hard to counter,” said Dr. Cornelius Hopper, who presented the data.

It is not known whether more minority students have simply applied to out-of-state medical schools. Nevertheless, the drop in UC enrollments comes at a time when a UC commission has called for a dramatic increase in minority medical students to meet the demands of the state’s changing population. The numbers of Latinos and Asian Americans is expected to soar in California while the ratio of non-Hispanic whites declines.

According to the UC Commission on the Future of Medical Education, the distribution of physicians is also out of balance, with the Central Valley lacking even enough generalist doctors while the Bay Area has a 50% to 85% excess supply of specialists.

However, minority physicians are more likely than white doctors to practice in low-income or rural areas, the task force reported.

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Minority Physicians

Recruiting minority students is a goal of the University of California committee studying medical education. But applications to UC medical schools declined 22% this year.

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% of % of % of state’s state’s state’s doctors current projected now pop. 2010 pop. Black 3% 7% 7% Latino 4% 26% 40%

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Source: University of California