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Which medical specialties have the least diversity??


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Improving diversity in medicine generally is how you improve diversity in some areas specifically, I'll assert. One way you improve diversity in medicine is by removing barriers that disproportionately stand in the way of minority applicants. For example, we might want to do something about racist school boards that automatically shunts many non-white kids into college/trades streams (https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/03/22/peel-school-board-report-leaves-readers-devastated-now-its-up-to-the-education-minister-to-fix.html). Or police services that unjustly target and brutalize minority communities (https://globalnews.ca/news/7048298/policing-in-canada-colonialism-anti-black-racism/). Or a society overall which for centuries has discriminated against and attempted to marginalize non-white people (https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/five-charts-that-show-what-systemic-racism-looks-like-in-canada-1.4970352). And how about the legacy of colonialism and the generational trauma of residential schools (http://www.trc.ca/about-us/trc-findings.html)?

If we want to increase diversity in medicine, we need to address the racism in our country that still, to this day, right now, works to keep minorities in the margins. Otherise, ensuring the incoming cohorts have some diversity can help, as a more diverse medical profession will itself engender a more diverse profession.

In the meantime, addressing poverty through a more robust social safety net or universal basic income. And we have more unoccupied homes than homeless people. Both of those issues -- poverty and homelessness -- similarly affect minorities at a greater rate (https://www.homelesshub.ca/blog/what-are-stats-racialized-homelessness). Both are issues within our power to solve and which will help more people in these communities reach their potential, which can include medical school. To say nothing about the humanitarian rightness of it/social determinants of health angle.

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