Contents

• Main Site
• Prospective Students
  • About the Health Professions Advising Office
  • FAQs for Prospective Students
  • International Students
  • Parents' Guide
  • Underrepresented Students
  • Visiting Purdue University
• Current Students
  • Applying to a Professional School
    • Professional File Service for letters of recommendation
    • Purdue's Application Guides PDFs
    • Preparing for Interviews
    • Asking for letters of recommendation
    • FAQ for Medical/Dental School Applicants
    • FAQ for all professional school applicants
    • Writing a Personal Statement
    • Aptitude Tests
  • Career Information
    • Information on Specific Careers and Educational Requirements
  • General Information
    • FAQs for Current Students
    • Information for International Students
    • Prehealth Student Organizations
    • Tips for Academic Success
    • Information for Underrepresented Students
• Faculty And Staff
  • General Information
  • Letters of Recommendation
    • FERPA Waivers
    • Purdue's Professional File Service
    • Timing of Letters
    • Tips for Writing Letters
  • Resources
• Links
  • Professional Organizations
  • Application Services
  • Health News Sites
  • Aptitude Tests

Information for Underrepresented Students

All healthcare fields are working to improve the diversity in their professions. The goal is to have a healthcare workforce that is representative of our population. A diverse workforce is more responsive to cultural differences among patients and practitioners. Many patients also prefer seeing providers who come from similar backgrounds. African Americans, Latino/a, and Native Americans are especially needed in medicine – though they make up 25% of the overall population, they make up only 12% of the workforce.

Efforts to improve diversity range from providing schoolchildren with special lessons to summer enrichment and research opportunities for underrepresented students. This work is often referred to as improving the medical pipeline because it helps channel more students into healthcare fields.

How is “underrepresented” defined?

Programs define this differently, but they often base it on the student coming from a medically underserved community. Being “medically underserved” is often based on socioeconomic level and/or ethnicity. Medical schools also use the concept of “disadvantaged status,” which they define as being from a medically underserved population and/or being on state and/or federal assistance. 

What programs are available?

Many healthcare training programs and their national organizations have plans to improve the medical pipeline. One effort is to provide summer enrichment programs. Although these are often open to all students, the original intent of the programs is to provide underrepresented students an opportunity to learn about and explore these careers. You should explore the Web site of the professional organization in your field of interest. These will often contain information about programs offered in that field to help underrepresented students explore that career.


The Center for Pre-Professional Advisign office often receives announcements about these programs, so you might want to meet with her to express your interest in learning more about these opportunities.

Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP) is a free, six-week summer enrichment program for first- and second-year pre-medical and pre-dental students. Highly recommended programs!

Other summer programs can be found at http://services.aamc.org/summerprograms/ 

Student National Medical Association (SNMA) is involved with supporting the interests of medical students of color and those interested in health disparity issues.

Student National Dental Association (SNDA) support the interests of underrepresented dental students and those interested in disparities in dental care access.

You can begin your search for more career information at:
Aspiring Doctors: http://www.aspiringdocs.org 
Explore Health Careers: http://www.explorehealthcareers.org