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1999 SESSION


SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 422
Requesting the Old Dominion Medical Society, the Medical Society of Virginia, the Medical College of Virginia of Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia Medical Center and the Medical College of Hampton Roads to encourage African Americans and other minorities to enter the medical profession and locate their medical practices in underserved areas of the Commonwealth.

Agreed to by the Senate, February 4, 1999
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, February 15, 1999

WHEREAS, the number of minorities applying to medical school has dropped over the last two years after 10 years of growth, prompting concerns that medicine is unlikely to mirror the diversity of the population of the United States anytime soon; and

WHEREAS, the two-year drop in minority applicants raises concerns that decades of efforts to boost their presence in medicine to levels representative of the general population have not been enough; and

WHEREAS, while certain minorities, considered underrepresented in medicine, constitute about 20 percent of the population, they make up about 11 percent of the medical school applicants and admissions; and

WHEREAS, the number of underrepresented minorities applying in 1997 dropped 11.3 percent from the year before, and by just under one percent in 1998; and

WHEREAS, recent court decisions, such as Hopwood v. Texas, and the passage of California’s Proposition 209 have curtailed affirmative action programs in student admissions to institutions of higher learning and prompted discussions on the future of diversity in medicine; and

WHEREAS, there has also been an overall decline in the number of applications to medical schools, indicating either a growing dissatisfaction with the profession or the greater appeal of other career choices; and

WHEREAS, the accessibility to quality health care in every region of the Commonwealth is the mutual goal of government and the medical profession; and

WHEREAS, minorities who come from underserved areas are more likely to return to those communities when they have finished their medical school training; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, That the Old Dominion Medical Society, the Medical Society of Virginia, the Medical College of Virginia of Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia Medical Center and the Medical College of Hampton Roads be requested to encourage African Americans and other minorities to enter the medical profession and locate their medical practices in underserved areas of the Commonwealth. The societies and medical schools are requested to work collaboratively to (i) inform African Americans and other minority students about career opportunities in medicine; (ii) aggressively recruit African Americans and other minorities for the medical profession; and (iii) encourage African Americans and other minority physicians and specialists to locate practices in underserved areas of the Commonwealth, particularly urban areas in which minorities predominate; and, be it

RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the presidents of the Old Dominion Medical Society, the Medical Society of Virginia, the Medical College of Virginia of Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia Medical Center, and the Medical College of Hampton Roads so that they may be apprised of the sense of the General Assembly in this matter.