tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29798185.post4836902897327333025..comments2024-02-28T08:18:10.886-08:00Comments on vitum medicinus ::: a life of medicine: "Aboriginals and Preferential Treatment in the Med School Admissions Process"Vitum Medicinushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09994320714669547787noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29798185.post-46431498233800049712007-02-07T13:47:00.000-08:002007-02-07T13:47:00.000-08:00Just discovered your blog via Couz's. It's going ...Just discovered your blog via Couz's. It's going in my favourites.<br /><br /><br />It's good to see someone else voicing this opinion. <br />I also think that aboriginals will be more likely to work in rural and remote areas where they have no doctors, or haven't been able to recruit a sufficient number. They'll be able to build more trust between patients who are aboriginal, and will be better aware of the specific issues and root causes of certain problems more than white or city-born doctors. It's interesting how generally with affirmative-action type programs, people will automatically assume that for a minority to get into a program, the admission level must have been lowered. (Granted in this case it was, but that's only part of the selection process. As I mentioned above, some aboriginal applicants could be much better at other things than some white applicants with a higher GPA). The common misconception is that these programs result in more-qualified applicants being passed up in favour of minorities. But people don't come pre-labelled as "more-qualified" and "less-qualified", they are judged that way by a human being capable of error, capable of racial/gender bias in a very subconscious way. I think the above typical reaction to affirmative action programs perfectly demonstrates how much we need programs like this to enable us to eventually get past those subconscious assumptions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29798185.post-45065312198147317502007-02-05T20:39:00.000-08:002007-02-05T20:39:00.000-08:00It's important to remember that what medschool is ...It's important to remember that what medschool is ultimately about is making sure that patients receive the best possible medical treatment. And I think most people would agree that simply using one's premed grades as a barometer of that would be utter nonsense. Of course academic ability is important, but there are a great many other factors that are important as well, and the fact that a particular social grouping's grades happens to be lower than the social average might still qualify them equally as well to best serve patients, so long as they have other qualities which compensate for such. Like you said Vitum, being Aboriginal is not a free pass, but having a lower <b>minimum</b> cutoff allows interviewers to explore the possibility that applicants might have non-standard qualifications.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com