The social mission of medical education: Admit different students

In his JAMA “Viewpoint” article, “Social Mission in Health Professions Education: Beyond Flexner”,[1] June 17, 2017, Fitzhugh Mullan makes a convincing case for medical schools to be committed to their social mission. He takes his definition from the “Beyond Flexner” website (www.beyondflexner.org), which says “Social mission is about making health not only better but fairer—more just, reliable, and universal”. He details what this means in terms of commitment to reducing health disparities, increasing access to healthcare in both rural and urban underserved communities, increasing diversity within the health professions. These serious issues have been identified for decades, but in fact the trend may be toward getting worse instead of better.

Mullan cites some examples of medical schools, primarily newer and “community based” schools, that are working toward these goals. These include Morehouse and Mercer (founded in an earlier wave of medical school expansion in 1975 and 1982 respectively), those of a more recent expansion in the 2000s (Florida International University and the AT Still Mesa Campus), and those yet to come (the merger of Geisinger Health System and Commonwealth University, Kaiser Permanente School). But he also talks about “mainstreaming”, the need for consciousness about, and implementation of, social mission to be a characteristic of all medical schools.

I believe that the most important measures of a health professions school’s social mission are its outputs. Using the 3 criteria identified by Mullan and colleagues in their seminal 2010 Annals of Internal Medicine article “The social mission of medical education: ranking the schools”,[2] we need to look at whether its graduates are more diverse, whether they practice in underserved areas, and whether they are more likely to be in primary care specialties. The 2010 article showed that some schools do better -- more often those that are public, newer, and not in the Northeast -- but the fact is that none is doing all that well.

The number of students entering primary care is a critical indicator because, based on national and international comparisons, a well-functioning health system should have 40-50% of physicians should be in primary care; the US is well below 30% and going down. Family medicine match rates are the most sensitive indicators of primary care production, because unlike internal medicine virtually all family physicians practice primary care, so a choice of this specialty means a commitment to primary care. In addition, it is the specialty most suited for practice in rural areas. Even if all schools consistently produced 50% primary care physicians, it would take at least a generation to get to that number for all physicians in practice, and we are far, far from this.

In 2012 John Delzell and I looked at 10 years of data (2002-2011) published annually on the family medicine match by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) documenting the number and percent of students from each medical school entering family medicine.[3] We found only a few schools that were relatively high in both number and percent, with the University of Minnesota and the University of Kansas far ahead of the rest. And yet even those schools do not produce primary care physicians at the 50% rate. In the most recent AAFP report, on 2015 graduates,[4] even the “socially conscious” schools cited by Mullan did not have very high numbers matching in family medicine:  Morehouse 8 (12.9%), Mercer 13 (13.8%), FIU 4 (5%). Minnesota, at 42 (18.2%) had the largest number in the nation, but still had 20 fewer than it did in 1999! In 1994, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced Project 3000 by 2000, aiming for 3000 minority medical students into US schools by the year 2000[5]. It failed. Today, in 2016-17, we are not only far from that number, but the percent of many minorities (especially African-American men) continues to drop.[6]

As in any process, the results of medical (and all health professions) education are affected by 3 sets of variables. Input variables are the students enrolled, process variables include the curriculum and overall experience of students during their education, and output variables are the expectations of what the income and life experience of a graduate is likely to be. While the last is probably the most important determinant, especially given the degree of debt with which students are graduating and the fact that many specialists can earn 2-3 (or more) times as much as a primary care physician, it is also the area that schools have the least ability to influence. As Mullan and colleagues have emphasized, medical schools can influence the process variables, including the school’s vision and mission, the teaching of social mission, determinants of health, disparities, and other areas in their classrooms and clinics, experiences for students to serve such as free clinics, and mentoring and role modeling by faculty. However, making these changes seem to be insufficient to overcome the negative influence of the output variables in terms of students choosing primary care and practice in underserved areas. At least for most of the students currently in medical school.

Which brings us to the input variable: who is admitted? Clearly, from the data cited above, medical schools are not taking appreciable numbers of students from underrepresented minority groups, from rural areas, or from lower socioeconomic groups, at least not in anything close to the proportion in the population. They take, on the whole, white (and Asian) students from well-to-do suburbs of large cities who, not coincidentally, went to the “best” public and private schools and have the highest grades and Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) scores. The problem for the health of the American people is that the strongest predictor of where a medical student will practice is where they come from; minority students are far more likely to practice in minority neighborhoods, rural students are far more likely to practice in rural areas, and white upper middle class students from the suburbs are more likely to practice in the suburbs. These are the areas that already have enough physicians (and sometimes too many). In a real sense, a physician who enters practice in a non-underserved area in a non-shortage specialty is contributing little marginal benefit to the health of the American people. The imbalance of physicians practicing in health professions shortage areas (HPSAs) vs other areas is demonstrated in the attached table from Zhang, et al.[7]

Yes, our society must urgently address the “output variables” to ensure that students who choose primary care can earn a reasonable proportion of what other specialists do (some studies indicate that 70% of mean specialist income would be sufficient to eliminate that as a reason for not choosing primary care). Indeed, medical schools need to address the “process variables” by having explicit curricula on health disparities, social determinants of health, and community and preventive health, and ensure there is not a “hidden curriculum” mitigating against primary care. But they also urgently need to ensure that most of their admissions, not a token number, are students whose characteristics mean they are more likely to meet America’s healthcare needs. These include demographic characteristics, such as rural or minority origin and lower socioeconomic status of their family, and individual characteristics identified by past performance (not sentiments in an essay). This is primarily significant volunteer service, especially major commitments like the Peace Corps, Americorps, Teach for America, etc.

And, most importantly, these changes and programs must happen at all medical schools and for the bulk of the classes. The time for experiments and pilot programs is done. These efforts must be scaled up, to be, in Mullan’s word, “mainstreamed”. And now is not too soon.

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[1] Mullan, F, Social Mission in Health Professions Education: Beyond Flexner, JAMA published online June 26, 2017. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.7286

[2] Mullan  F, Chen  C, Petterson  S, Kolsky  G, Spagnola  M.  The social mission of medical education: ranking the schools.  Ann Intern Med. 2010;152(12):804-811

[3]  Freeman J, Delzell J, Medical School Graduates Entering Family Medicine: Increasing the Overall Number, Fam Med 2012;44(9):613-4.

[4] Kozakowski S, Travis A, Bentley A, Fetter G, Entry of US Medical School Graduates Into Family Medicine Residencies: 2015–2016, Fam Med 2016;48(9):688-95, (online Table A).

[5] Nickens HW, Ready TP, Petersdorf RG, Project 3000 by 2000 -- Racial and Ethnic Diversity in U.S. Medical School, N Engl J Med 1994; 331:472-476August 18, 1994DOI: 10.1056/NEJM199408183310712

[6] https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/

[7] Zhang X, Phillips RL, Bazemore AW, Dodoo MS, Petterson SM, Xierall I, Green LA, Physician Distribution and Access: Workforce Priorities, Am Fam Physician. 2008 May 15;77(10):1378.