Throughout its 150-year history, the Howard University College of Medicine (HUCM) has produced more than 10,000 physicians – most of them from underserved populations with a mission to serve their communities.
Howard University is continuing that legacy as data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) revealed that the university was the number one producer of Black applicants to medical schools in the United States this year.
Leaders at the Washington, D.C.- based historically Black college and university (HBCU) acknowledge that this designation as a record producer of aspiring minority physicians stems from the offering of intentional pipeline programs for minority groups, ongoing faculty development opportunities and an unrelenting emphasis on the College of Medicine’s core values of ethics, compassion and commitment to being empathetic and culturally sensitive care-givers.
“The one thing I will always point out is that Howard has produced opportunity for many who otherwise would not have had it any other way,” says Dr. Hugh E. Mighty, dean of the College of Medicine and vice president of clinical affairs. “If you think that roughly 70 to 75 percent of our class is people of color, [and] 80 percent of the folks have no other opportunity, we’re really a major pipeline.”
Reflecting back on HUCM’s history, Mighty lists the groups that had access to Howard’s transformative experience in a time where they would not ordinarily be afforded medical training or an education: women in the early 1900s, individuals of the Jewish faith in the mid-early 1900s and, traditionally, African-Americans since the college’s opening in 1868.
“I think that just speaks to the magnitude and impact that Howard has had across that 150 years,” he says.
A typical class size today for the College of Medicine is roughly 120 students a year. That is nearly equivalent to the amount of Howard undergraduates that applied to U.S. medical schools around the country for the 2017-2018 academic year – 118 students.
