This article first appeared in the December 2002 edition of Rounds

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part feature on the college’s Center of Excellence for Multicultural Medicine. The second part will interview some of the alumni who have benefited from participating in the center’s programs. Also Joni Schaller, Health Careers Opportunity Program director, recently accepted the position of assistant director of OU’s Institutional Research Office. Schaller begins her new position Jan. 6, 2003.

     The Center of Excellence program and the Health Careers Opportunity Program work together as the Center of Excellence for Multicultural Medicine, Ohio’s only Health Resources and Services Administration-funded Centers of Excellence program, to directly address one of the four main missions of OUCOM: promoting diversity.

     Diversity is important at OU-COM, explains Joni Schaller, HCOP director, because as the American population becomes more racially and culturally varied, the need for more diversity among health-care professionals increases as well. “There are people who have never had an opportunity to go to a doctor that looks like them,” she says.

     COE and HCOP strive to improve the ethnic/cultural mix of medical students within the college and to provide health-care career learning opportunities for economically and educationally disadvantaged students of all races — especially those who live in Southeastern Ohio. It’s an advantage for OUCOM that HCOP’s and COE’s aims are tied so closely together, says Schaller.

     COE Director Tyrone Carr says, “While the objectives of HCOP and COE may vary slightly, both programs work as one to assist the college in accomplishing its diversity mission.”

      HCOP’s programs (Summer Institute, Summer Enrichment, Program ExCel, MCAT Prep, Summer Scholars, Post Baccalaureate) are focused on creating a “pipeline” of entry for underrepresented and/or disadvantaged students who are interested in becoming health professionals in any capacity, whether doctor, nurse, scientist or medical technician. “We expose them to as many opportunities within the health professions as we can, starting with students in the seventh grade,” says Schaller.

      An important consideration in HCOP’s strategy, she says, is that “if our students are from here and they become health professionals, most likely they’re going to continue to live here and serve here. That is certainly a plus for Southeastern Ohio.”  Another part of that strategy introduces HCOP students who are interested in becoming physicians to osteopathic medicine and OUCOM. “If they want to go to medical school,” says Schaller, “they are prime candidates to be recruited to attend the college.”

      The COE’s prematriculation programs are tailored to prepare students to become osteopathic physicians — specifically to prepare students to successfully complete four years of medical education at OU-COM. That is, however, only a starting point for COE’s efforts, says Carr. “We also try to promote diversity by affecting the focus of curriculum and research in ways that bring attention to the health needs of minorities in our society,” says Carr. Another important goal of COE is the recruitment and hiring of minorities at the faculty and administration levels, he says.

      Over the past years, the programmatic efforts of the COEMM have greatly affected the recruitment, retention and success of minority students at the college.

      The number of minority students enrolled at OU-COM has more than doubled, rising from about 40 in 1995 to more than 100 students in 2001 (for combined first-, second-, third- and fourth-year student annual enrollment). OUCOM’s Class of 2002 consisted of 29.8 percent minorities; 25 percent of the Class of 2006 are minorities.

      Since HCOP and COE programs have been in place, applications by minorities underrepresented in the health professions are up 36.5 percent, and 95 percent of the college’s underrepresented minority students have gone on to graduate.

      As of 2002, 11.3 percent of all OU-COM graduates are minorities, and 10.25 percent are members of minorities who are underrepresented in the health professions. This compares with only 5.5 percent underrepresented minorities in all other OU graduate programs.  OU-COM’s underrepresented minority graduates — almost 200 — are now practicing in 29 states around the nation. Eighty-eight of these alumni are currently practicing in Ohio.

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