Affirmative action ruling raises concerns over impact on medical school diversity

Amna Nawaz:

Doctors, nurses, hospitals and many others are concerned about how the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down affirmative action in college admissions could affect the medical profession.

Currently, just 5.7 percent of all doctors in the U.S. are Black, and nearly 7 percent are Hispanic, while 64 percent are white. Black and Latino applicants still make up a small percentage of those who go to medical school. And there’s worry about what this ruling could mean for the pipeline of who eventually provides health care.

For more on those concerns, I’m joined by Dr. Utibe Essien. He’s an internal medicine physician and assistant professor of medicine at UCLA.

Dr. Essien, welcome, and thanks for joining us.

Before we get into the details of the ruling, I just have to ask, what was your initial reaction when you first heard the Supreme Court’s ruling?

Dr. Utibe Essien, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me, Amna.

And, sadly, while we were expecting this news, it was pretty much a gut punch. And it was really devastating to see that, despite years of proof that affirmative action does improve diversity in undergraduate and medical schools, that the court has decided to let go of this decision.

And so, I was pretty devastated on Thursday. I know a lot of my friends and colleagues were as well.