Well one is mentoring- when I attended segregated schools i got more encouragement when things got bad- and all my teachers wanted me to persue medicine. In todays climate that is very difficult for a black man- almost 75% of whites in America have no contacts wth blacks so many are just sterotyped. When I was at Southern Dr. Prestage always gave a lecture on the number of premed students who entered medical and dental school and he would call them out by name.
Less black males are going into the STEM studies--that is very important
Race-- these schools still have a quota whether we want to admit it or not. When I was At howard med- UC Med school had a quota of 2 blacks and 8 jews per class.
Cost-- When I went to Howard Medicine , the tuition was $600 per year- now it is over $50,000. What I tell my black patients is that after graduation they can join the Public Health Service for 3 years and ALL of that money borrowed would be forgiven.
Choice of school for pre-med-- If you are a black male you have a greater chance of getting into medical school is you do your undergrad work at Xavier in New Orleans, than Harvard-- many black female doctors I met were undergrads at Xavier and turned down scholarhips to Harvard, Yale, Penn and Stanford because of this fact.
Cuba has a full 7 year scholarship that cover pre med and medical school in Havana , that is only for African- Americans-- they have to promise to go back to their communites in the states upon graduation-- the Congressional Black Caucus sponsors this program. Cuba has one of the best health care systems in the world, and their infant mortality rate is lower than ours--
