As an African-American woman, my journey to medical school has been rife with inequities rooted in systemic racism. While in medical school, I have seen this manifest as a lack of racial diversity reflected in the medical field. Although racial and ethnic minorities make up about one third of the United States population, less than 10 percent of practicing physicians are Latinx, African-American, or Native American. Patients face increased barriers to accessing healthcare, decrease health seeking behaviors and receive poorer quality of care when they cannot find providers that resemble them, their beliefs, their cultures, or other facets of their lives. One requirement to advance health equity is to promote greater diversity among medical school applicants and matriculants. To do this, we must create a change in the institutional structures that are deeply rooted in racism to support and retain underrepresented in medicine (URiM) students and allow them to thrive. I am passionate about these efforts because they will ultimately benefit our patients of color typically overlooked in the medical system. As a medical student, I have worked hard to develop multiple systemic changes to increase the representation and support of URiM students at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine (UCSD SOM). Studies show that URiM physicians are much more likely to work in underserved communities compared to their white counterparts, which is incredibly important given the critical shortage of physicians willing to work in disadvantaged communities. Increasing URiM representation in medical schools, in turn, begins to address health disparities and increase care for vulnerable populations. In my role as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion on UCSD SOM’s Student Council, I created opportunities to address the low URiM enrollment at UCSD SOM. I organized a Diversity Mixer where admitted premedical students of color could talk with current URiM students, faculty, and staff at UCSD. Additionally, in collaboration with the UCSD SOM minority student organizations, I organized free bimonthly dinners for URiM interviewees during the interview season. These dinners allowed premedical students to meet with current URiM students to ask questions and learn about opportunities and support systems within the school. Furthermore, I spearheaded an initiative where members of the affinity organizations email every URiM interviewee to show our strong desire to have these students matriculate at UCSD. These efforts have been proudly reflected in a roughly 5% increase in URiM students matriculating at the school in just a one year period. With this success, I believe UCSD SOM will continue to grow as an institution that produces health care providers that reflect the communities they serve with the ultimate goal that URiM providers are no longer “underrepresented”. While addressing the problem of representation through my personal efforts with recruitment, I also sought to remedy the structural issues within my institution. I formed a coalition of medialstudents that researched why URiM students chose not to apply, interview, or matriculate at UCSD. Some reasons included a perceived lack of commitment to diversity, fewer opportunities to study social determinants of health, and little diversity within faculty. We generated solutions to these findings during quarterly meetings with the school’s administration, including the Deans and Vice Chancellors. I pushed for the school to provide increased funding to the Office of Diversity and Community Partnerships, which now is providing more assistance to URiM students and affinity organizations. Beyond that, we advocated for a commitment to hire more diverse faculty as representation is paramount to improving feelings of belongingness to the school. Lastly, we fought for UCSD SOM to create a more standard curriculum addressing health equity. Properly educating medical students to understand social and structural influences of health is crucial in a diverse and inequitable society. A health equity focused curriculum has now been intertwined with the more traditional medical curriculum. These improvements have enabled UCSD SOM to become a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for all medical students and faculty. To further increase diversity in medical schools and better care for diverse patients, it is also critical to address barriers prospective medical students face prior to applying to and attending medical school. For example, educational reforms that aim to encourage students of color to complete their K-12 education and pursue higher education are important for diversifying science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) fields. At UCSD SOM, I have been involved with “Doc 4 a Day” which works toward exposing disadvantaged middle and high school students of color to careers in science and medicine. Through this program, groups of students are invited to UCSD’s campus where I teach them about physical and neurological exams, anatomy, and various other health related topics. Pipeline and diversity programs that expose elementary, middle, and high school students of color to STEM fields are powerful tools to increase diversity in these fields. These programs have also been shown to increase the number of physicians who return to their communities to practice health care. My work and personal experiences have shown time and time again that a diverse physician workforce benefits all patients with improved health outcomes, particularly those from marginalized communities. Maximizing the diversity of health care providers will dismantle systemic barriers that patients face when seeking care and will contribute to a greater quality of care for all. My efforts to increase representation and support of URiM students, specifically in my advocacy and mentorship roles, have also exposed other upstream causes of health inequity, such as barriers to educational attainment. Through obtaining a Master of Public Health (MPH), I will incorporate my experiences to analyze education policy and its interactions with health, especially the health of our underserved communities disproportionately constituted of people of color. Further, through understanding these systems, I will learn how to create policies to close gaps in educational outcomes to achieve health equity for minority patient populations. With an MPH, I will be well prepared for my career goal as an academic, public health-oriented physician dedicated to improving the care of vulnerable patient populations through efforts in education public policy.

As an African-American woman, my journey to medical school has been rife with inequities rooted in systemic racism. While in medical school, I have seen this manifest as a lack of racial diversity reflected in the medical field. Although racial and ethnic minorities make up about one third of the United States population, less than 10 percent of practicing physicians are Latinx, African-American, or Native American. Patients face increased barriers to accessing healthcare, decrease health seeking behaviors and receive poorer quality of care when they cannot find providers that resemble them, their beliefs, their cultures, or other facets of their lives. One requirement to advance health equity is to promote greater diversity among medical school applicants and matriculants. To do this, we must create a change in the institutional structures that are deeply rooted in racism to support and retain underrepresented in medicine (URiM) students and allow them to thrive. I am passionate about these efforts because they will ultimately benefit our patients of color typically overlooked in the medical system. As a medical student, I have worked hard to develop multiple systemic changes to increase the representation and support of URiM students at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine (UCSD SOM). Studies show that URiM physicians are much more likely to work in underserved communities compared to their white counterparts, which is incredibly important given the critical shortage of physicians willing to work in disadvantaged communities. Increasing URiM representation in medical schools, in turn, begins to address health disparities and increase care for vulnerable populations. In my role as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion on UCSD SOM’s Student Council, I created opportunities to address the low URiM enrollment at UCSD SOM. I organized a Diversity Mixer where admitted premedical students of color could talk with current URiM students, faculty, and staff at UCSD. Additionally, in collaboration with the UCSD SOM minority student organizations, I organized free bimonthly dinners for URiM interviewees during the interview season. These dinners allowed premedical students to meet with current URiM students to ask questions and learn about opportunities and support systems within the school. Furthermore, I spearheaded an initiative where members of the affinity organizations email every URiM interviewee to show our strong desire to have these students matriculate at UCSD. These efforts have been proudly reflected in a roughly 5% increase in URiM students matriculating at the school in just a one year period. With this success, I believe UCSD SOM will continue to grow as an institution that produces health care providers that reflect the communities they serve with the ultimate goal that URiM providers are no longer “underrepresented”. While addressing the problem of representation through my personal efforts with recruitment, I also sought to remedy the structural issues within my institution. I formed a coalition of medialstudents that researched why URiM students chose not to apply, interview, or matriculate at UCSD. Some reasons included a perceived lack of commitment to diversity, fewer opportunities to study social determinants of health, and little diversity within faculty. We generated solutions to these findings during quarterly meetings with the school’s administration, including the Deans and Vice Chancellors. I pushed for the school to provide increased funding to the Office of Diversity and Community Partnerships, which now is providing more assistance to URiM students and affinity organizations. Beyond that, we advocated for a commitment to hire more diverse faculty as representation is paramount to improving feelings of belongingness to the school. Lastly, we fought for UCSD SOM to create a more standard curriculum addressing health equity. Properly educating medical students to understand social and structural influences of health is crucial in a diverse and inequitable society. A health equity focused curriculum has now been intertwined with the more traditional medical curriculum. These improvements have enabled UCSD SOM to become a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for all medical students and faculty. To further increase diversity in medical schools and better care for diverse patients, it is also critical to address barriers prospective medical students face prior to applying to and attending medical school. For example, educational reforms that aim to encourage students of color to complete their K-12 education and pursue higher education are important for diversifying science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) fields. At UCSD SOM, I have been involved with “Doc 4 a Day” which works toward exposing disadvantaged middle and high school students of color to careers in science and medicine. Through this program, groups of students are invited to UCSD’s campus where I teach them about physical and neurological exams, anatomy, and various other health related topics. Pipeline and diversity programs that expose elementary, middle, and high school students of color to STEM fields are powerful tools to increase diversity in these fields. These programs have also been shown to increase the number of physicians who return to their communities to practice health care. My work and personal experiences have shown time and time again that a diverse physician workforce benefits all patients with improved health outcomes, particularly those from marginalized communities. Maximizing the diversity of health care providers will dismantle systemic barriers that patients face when seeking care and will contribute to a greater quality of care for all. My efforts to increase representation and support of URiM students, specifically in my advocacy and mentorship roles, have also exposed other upstream causes of health inequity, such as barriers to educational attainment. Through obtaining a Master of Public Health (MPH), I will incorporate my experiences to analyze education policy and its interactions with health, especially the health of our underserved communities disproportionately constituted of people of color. Further, through understanding these systems, I will learn how to create policies to close gaps in educational outcomes to achieve health equity for minority patient populations. With an MPH, I will be well prepared for my career goal as an academic, public health-oriented physician dedicated to improving the care of vulnerable patient populations through efforts in education public policy.

As an African-American woman, my journey to medical school has been rife with inequities rooted in systemic racism. While in medical school, I have seen this manifest as a lack of racial diversity reflected in the medical field. Although racial and ethnic minorities make up about one third of the United States population, less than 10 percent of practicing physicians are Latinx, African-American, or Native American. Patients face increased barriers to accessing healthcare, decrease health seeking behaviors and receive poorer quality of care when they cannot find providers that resemble them, their beliefs, their cultures, or other facets of their lives. One requirement to advance health equity is to promote greater diversity among medical school applicants and matriculants. To do this, we must create a change in the institutional structures that are deeply rooted in racism to support and retain underrepresented in medicine (URiM) students and allow them to thrive. I am passionate about these efforts because they will ultimately benefit our patients of color typically overlooked in the medical system. As a medical student, I have worked hard to develop multiple systemic changes to increase the representation and support of URiM students at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine (UCSD SOM). Studies show that URiM physicians are much more likely to work in underserved communities compared to their white counterparts, which is incredibly important given the critical shortage of physicians willing to work in disadvantaged communities. Increasing URiM representation in medical schools, in turn, begins to address health disparities and increase care for vulnerable populations. In my role as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion on UCSD SOM’s Student Council, I created opportunities to address the low URiM enrollment at UCSD SOM. I organized a Diversity Mixer where admitted premedical students of color could talk with current URiM students, faculty, and staff at UCSD. Additionally, in collaboration with the UCSD SOM minority student organizations, I organized free bimonthly dinners for URiM interviewees during the interview season. These dinners allowed premedical students to meet with current URiM students to ask questions and learn about opportunities and support systems within the school. Furthermore, I spearheaded an initiative where members of the affinity organizations email every URiM interviewee to show our strong desire to have these students matriculate at UCSD. These efforts have been proudly reflected in a roughly 5% increase in URiM students matriculating at the school in just a one year period. With this success, I believe UCSD SOM will continue to grow as an institution that produces health care providers that reflect the communities they serve with the ultimate goal that URiM providers are no longer “underrepresented”. While addressing the problem of representation through my personal efforts with recruitment, I also sought to remedy the structural issues within my institution. I formed a coalition of medialstudents that researched why URiM students chose not to apply, interview, or matriculate at UCSD. Some reasons included a perceived lack of commitment to diversity, fewer opportunities to study social determinants of health, and little diversity within faculty. We generated solutions to these findings during quarterly meetings with the school’s administration, including the Deans and Vice Chancellors. I pushed for the school to provide increased funding to the Office of Diversity and Community Partnerships, which now is providing more assistance to URiM students and affinity organizations. Beyond that, we advocated for a commitment to hire more diverse faculty as representation is paramount to improving feelings of belongingness to the school. Lastly, we fought for UCSD SOM to create a more standard curriculum addressing health equity. Properly educating medical students to understand social and structural influences of health is crucial in a diverse and inequitable society. A health equity focused curriculum has now been intertwined with the more traditional medical curriculum. These improvements have enabled UCSD SOM to become a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for all medical students and faculty. To further increase diversity in medical schools and better care for diverse patients, it is also critical to address barriers prospective medical students face prior to applying to and attending medical school. For example, educational reforms that aim to encourage students of color to complete their K-12 education and pursue higher education are important for diversifying science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) fields. At UCSD SOM, I have been involved with “Doc 4 a Day” which works toward exposing disadvantaged middle and high school students of color to careers in science and medicine. Through this program, groups of students are invited to UCSD’s campus where I teach them about physical and neurological exams, anatomy, and various other health related topics. Pipeline and diversity programs that expose elementary, middle, and high school students of color to STEM fields are powerful tools to increase diversity in these fields. These programs have also been shown to increase the number of physicians who return to their communities to practice health care. My work and personal experiences have shown time and time again that a diverse physician workforce benefits all patients with improved health outcomes, particularly those from marginalized communities. Maximizing the diversity of health care providers will dismantle systemic barriers that patients face when seeking care and will contribute to a greater quality of care for all. My efforts to increase representation and support of URiM students, specifically in my advocacy and mentorship roles, have also exposed other upstream causes of health inequity, such as barriers to educational attainment. Through obtaining a Master of Public Health (MPH), I will incorporate my experiences to analyze education policy and its interactions with health, especially the health of our underserved communities disproportionately constituted of people of color. Further, through understanding these systems, I will learn how to create policies to close gaps in educational outcomes to achieve health equity for minority patient populations. With an MPH, I will be well prepared for my career goal as an academic, public health-oriented physician dedicated to improving the care of vulnerable patient populations through efforts in education public policy.