PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

AMA encourages future physicians

Doctors Back to School targets minority pupils.

By AMNews staff. June 9, 2008.

About 270 Chicago schoolchildren got a glimpse of what it's like to be a doctor last month.

The youngsters donned surgical outfits, flipped through Gray's Anatomy, took pulses and listened to heartbeats with stethoscopes when seven physicians and medical students visited Ted Lenart Regional Gifted Center in Chicago.

The visit was part of the AMA's Doctors Back to School program, an effort launched in 2002 to get minority students interested in pursuing medical careers and to raise awareness about the need for minority doctors. Through the program, medical mentors give a show-and-tell about careers in medicine and encourage children to follow the same path. More than 220 physicians and medical students have participated in the program.

Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians make up about 25% of the U.S. population but only 7% of physicians, according to the AMA. The lack of diversity in the physician work force can adversely affect patients, the AMA said.

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