Family Physician Mentors Can Encourage Minority Students to Embrace Family Medicine -- AAFP News Now -- AAFP: December 04, 2013 01:34 pm Sheri Porter – The United States currently faces a critical shortage of primary care physicians, and many experts predict the shortage will grow worse in coming years. In particular, health care experts say the nation needs more minority physicians because although African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans currently make up nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population, just 7 percent of U.S. physicians come from one of these ethnic groups.
An AMA-inspired outreach program dubbed "Doctors Back to School" aims to improve that situation. The AAFP has embraced the program, and, in cooperation with the AMA, has adapted the materials for use by family physicians.
Put simply, the initiative uses volunteers to introduce middle- and high-school-age minority students to family medicine and encourage them to consider family medicine as a career.
