If the 5 closed historically Black medical schools had remained open, these schools might have collectively provided training to an additional 27, 773 graduates and 35, 315 graduates, respectively, between their year of closure and 2019.

Sit with that. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2769573

When we talk about the lack of Black physicians, it is not my happenstance. It is by design.

“An important factor in the closure of these medical programs was the Flexner report on medical education, which was published in 1910.”

“This report emphasized the importance of education in basic sciences as a prerequisite and a complement to clinical experience in the training of physicians.”

“After the publication of this report, all but 2 of the historically Black medical schools, including several that were thriving at the turn of the century (as indicated by enrollment and graduation patterns),18 closed.”

“A lot of these places that were shut down were producing doctors for Black communities and rural white communities, and were doing so on a shoestring budget, so they were not going to be prioritized.”

“At the time, the Carnegie Foundation and the American Medical Association tasked Abraham Flexner, an education specialist, with traveling to all 155 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada to assess the state of medical education.”

Both organizations were complicit in severely diminishing the number of Black Americans who could have become physicians.

H/t to @DrAlethaMaybank for sharing this article and deepest gratitude to the authors for writing truth to power.

*typo
“between an additional 27, 773 graduates and 35, 315 graduates”