Courtesy of The Grio
When Vince Wilson, 44, was in his early 20s, he considered being a doctor, yet his own insecurities held him back.
“The bottom line is, I never thought I was smart enough,” he says.
Instead, he focused his interest on other fields in medicine, becoming an x-ray technician, an EMT, a certified nursing assistant and an Army and Air Force healthcare technician.
“I always had the impression that [only] the kids who were superior in math and science became doctors,” he says. Despite having good academic preparation, he adds that he didn’t think that his self-described “average” grades qualified.
That was the late 1970s and early 1980s, and right around the time that the number of black males applying to medical school began to decline.
Thirty years later, according to a new report from the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), even fewer black males are applying to medical school and ultimately becoming doctors. While the applicant pool has grown, the number of black males applying is trending downward.
