Want better Doctors? Then find one that comes from a diverse medical school, says one Study!

We all want to have good doctors when we seeking health care, but what makes a doctor a good doctor?
One study in the Sept. 10th edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association has found a link between very good doctors and very diverse medical schools. The study which was led by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, the first of its kind, found that white students who attend racially diverse medical schools expressed feeling better prepared than students at less diverse schools to care for patients from different racial/ethnic/or economic groups than their own. They are also more likely to endorse access to adequate health care as a societal right rather than a privilege.

There have been studies in the past that found a positive and beneficial correlations between diverse education and students, but the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute wanted to explore the effects of diversity in medical schools on the students who attended them as it relates to the medical profession,

"We wanted to see if the results also would apply in medical school education," said senior author LuAnn Wilkerson, senior associate dean of medical education at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Do white students educated in a racially diverse environment show a greater sensitivity to the healthcare needs of traditionally underrepresented minority populations or feel better prepared to meet those needs?"

In this Study, 20,000 graduating medical students from 118 medical schools during a two-year period were surveyed on the issues of diversity. Diversity was defined as the proportion of students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and the degree to which the medical schools promoted interracial interaction. Historically black and Puerto Rican medical schools data were excluded from the study.

The findings suggested that mere diversity was insufficient in showing positive effects, however when medical schools with diverse student population encourage cross-racial interaction, the medical students felt better prepared and more inclined serve people who are different than themselves.

"We argue that student diversity in medical education is a key component in creating a physician workforce that can best meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population and could be a tool in helping to end disparities in health and healthcare," said coauthor Paul Wimmers, an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

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