Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) face barriers to medical school admission, study finds

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – There are 45.3 million African Americans living in the United States and they represent 13.6 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But only 5.7 percent of physicians in the United States self-identify as Black, despite multiple efforts over many years to increase the number of Black doctors.

A new study led by Jasmine Weiss, MD, MHS, FAAP, assistant professor of pediatrics in the UNC School of Medicine, describes the barriers to medical school admission that students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) may face. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.

“We wanted to hear directly from advisors working with HBCU students from the time they enter college, to understand the struggles and obstacles the students are facing as they navigate the tedious path to medical school,” Weiss said.

In the qualitative study, Weiss and her co-authors conducted interviews with 26 HBCU premedical advisors and asked them to describe the barriers to and facilitators of Black pre-medical students successfully navigating to medical school.

Participants who were interviewed described three major themes: (1) complex institutional relationship dynamics between undergraduate HBCUs and medical schools; (2) concerns about preferential treatment for students from predominantly white institutions (PWIs) when accessing clinical shadowing opportunities; (3) the “it takes a village mindset” emphasizing family and peer involvement.

“There is so much room for PWI medical schools to engage directly with HBCUs and their students if they are serious about attracting and more importantly enrolling the best and brightest students into their respective student bodies; because unfortunately Black and Brown students are still sorely underrepresented in our physician workforce,” Weiss said.

The article concludes, “Our findings highlight the opportunities and challenges that HBCU students face when navigating the journey to medical school, from the perspective of the premedical advisor.” Our findings have many implications. HBCUs are an essential engine in the production of Black physicians in the U.S., by producing a vast number of medical school applicants, and by training physicians. By not addressing barriers for undergraduate students at HBCUs, medical schools and the medical field at large are missing critical opportunities to welcome unique insights into their communities and in the field of medicine. Future studies could compare and contrast the perspectives of premedical advisors at PWIs (predominantly White institutions) in the context of the Black undergraduate students navigating to medical school as well as the perspectives of Black students themselves seeking admission to medical school from differing institutions (PWIs vs. HBCUs).”

Dr. Weiss is lead author of the JAMA Network Open article. Her co-authors are Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako MD, MS, in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Ngozi D. Akingbesote BS; Danya Keene, PhD;  Lilanthi Balasuriya, MD; Mona Sharifi MD, MPH; all at Yale University School of Medicine; Inginia Genao, MD, at Penn State College of Medicine; and Darin Latimore, MD, in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.