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Show The Broad June Ax 1975 Page Basic On December 16, 1970, the Executive Council of the Association of American Medical Colleges adopted a policy statement directing its “earnest attention and effort toward the goal of i increasing minority opportunities in medical service, teaching, and research.” 7 Although there has been a marked increase in minority enrollment in U.S. medical schools in the four years since the AAMC statement, minorities continue to be severely underrepresented in Science comparison to their numbers in the general population. In 1973-74 minorities comprised ap- proximately 20% of the nations population and only 7.4% of its medical students (Black 6.0%, Chicano 1.0%, Native American .2%, and Puerto Rican .2%). Of 50,636 medical students in 1973-74, only 3,755 were minority. The need to increase the number of minority physicians is still with us and efforts to do so must Enrichment continue. In 1970, the University of New Mexico School of Medicine initiated the Basic Science Enrichment Program (BSEP) to provide better. opportunities for minority students to enter medical school. ~The BSEP consists of an eight week summer | training session aimed at strengthening the basic ae _ science background of minority applicants who i ‘previously may. have. been considered academically unacceptable to medical school. In addition, the BSEP provides the participant with a Program _ preview of what can be expected, academically, _of a medical student. During the twenty-one Seventeen — first three years of the program minority students were enrolled. students subsequently matriculated into the UNM School of: Medicine and thus far the retention rate has been 100%. In 1972, the Uilivocsite: of New | Rendon School of Medicine received a federal grant to expand and formalize the BSEP’ to. include students from | _ other medical schools. During the summer students, of 1973, twenty-five ninarity : representing ten medical schools, par- ticipated in the BSEP. Twenty-four.:-students enrolled that fall in ‘medical school, the other student entered in the fall of 1974: The retention rate is 100% program, for the 25: p atudants in ee 1973 Of the thirty-two ‘hideout: in the 1974 program, | thirty-one entered medical school. | | 18 |
