The Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences (OSU-CHS) quietly launched an initiative to help more Native Americans enter the STEM fields this past June.
The newly created Office for the Advancement of Native Americans in Medicine and Science, headed up by Dr. Kent Smith, professor of anatomy, is reaching out to the 39 federally recognized tribes of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma, where 9 percent of the population is American Indian, does slightly better than the national average with regards to Native academic achievement. Oklahoma graduated 63 percent of Native students from the high school class of 2010, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Nationally, 51 percent of American Indian students graduated in the class of 2010.
Yet of those that do graduate, only a tiny fraction go into STEM.
“One of the downfalls to the lack of Native Americans in the STEM fields and medicine is they’ve had no mentors growing up who are physicians or scientists, who can say ‘Hey, this is what I’m doing, here’s the path I took, you might consider it,’” Smith said.
Compounding the problem of a lack of Native Americans in STEM and medical fields is Oklahoma’s overall shortage of doctors and medical health professionals, particularly in rural areas.
