FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 7, 2015
Contacts:
White Coats for Black Lives National Working Group, national@whitecoats4blacklives.org, (215) 385-3975
MEDIA ADVISORY
Medical students to hold national protests for racial justice.
Students at medical schools nationwide to demand that their schools enroll Black, Latino, and Native American students and ensure access to healthcare for patients in their local communities
What
Silent protests at medical schools in New York, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, and elsewhere calling on medical schools and academic medical centers to move beyond mission statements and slogans in their efforts to promote racial justice. Specifically, students will be making two demands of their schools:
- Enroll an incoming medical school class that that is representative of the American people: at least 13% Black students, 1% Native American students, and 17% Latino students.
- Ensure that members of medical schools’ local communities, particularly people of color, have full access to care at academic medical centers without financial hardship.
Students will be highlighting disparities between the stated values of their medical schools and their actual actions using the hashtag, #ActionsSpeakLouder.
Who
Medical students, coordinated by the national medical student organization, White Coats for Black Lives
When
Various times (check local actions; list below), Wednesday, Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day and the one-year anniversary of last year’s national White Coat Die-Ins to support the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
Why
Racism is one of the major health problems in the United States; excess mortality claims 83,000 Black lives each year, making racism a more potent killer than prostate, breast, or colon cancer. Addressing racism and its consequences must therefore be a central goal of American medical schools as they carry our their two key functions: educating future physicians and caring for patients.
Currently, Black and Latino people represent roughly 30% of our nation’s population, but only 8.5% of the physician workforce. To achieve a representative physician workforce, medical schools would have to enroll exclusively Black, Latino, and Native American medical students for more than ten years. Physicians of color are more likely to provide care for America’s underserved communities, and patients of color report higher satisfaction when their doctor shares their racial background. Increasing the numbers of Black, Latino, and Native American doctors is a therefore key step in eliminating health inequities.
Moreover, many of our medical centers contribute directly to health inequality by excluding patients of color from their hospitals. Although it is illegal for hospitals and practices to discriminate against patients based on race, it is legal and indeed common practice to deny care to patients on the basis of their insurance status. For example, at many academic medical centers, patients with Medicaid insurance cannot make appointments in faculty practices; instead, they are seen in trainee and student-run clinics. Given that Black, Latino, and Native American patients are much less likely to have private insurance than their white counterparts, such a system effectively ensures that they do not have access to the cutting edge care that academic medical centers pride themselves on providing.
Where
Medical schools across the country, including but not limited to:
Baylor College of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Howard University College of Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Penn State Hershey College of Medicine
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine
Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
Touro University California, College of Osteopathic Medicine
University of California Berkeley/University of California San Francisco Joint Medical Program
University of California Davis School of Medicine
University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine
University of California San Diego School of Medicine
University of California San Francisco School of Medicine
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