logo
Texas sees drop in Black med students

Texas sees drop in Black med students

Axios12-02-2025
The number of first-year Black medical students has dropped sharply in Texas, new data shows.
Why it matters: Students who represent minority populations are more likely to care for those populations when they become doctors, Chinwe Efuribe, a Hutto pediatrician who runs mentoring programs with the Austin Black Physicians Association, tells Axios.
What they're saying:"We're more likely to be working in the community, more likely to participate in community health fairs and more likely to be involved in relationship building — and that leads to increased life expectancy and better health outcomes generally," Efuribe said.
Doctors from similar backgrounds might have a better sense of what questions to ask patients and what cultural factors are at play with health challenges, Efuribe said.
By the numbers: There are 195 Black medical students in Texas this year, down from 248 at the start of the 2021-22 academic year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), which has collected data on this topic since 1978.
Less than 10% of Texas medical students are Black. By comparison, 13.6% of the state population is Black.
The latest: Medical school student enrollment is also down nationally, following the Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action in higher education.
Between the lines: The downturn in new Black medical school students shows that "policies meant to address systemic inequality have not been institutionalized to fully address these issues if removing them can negatively impact admission this quickly," Israel Herndon, who does graduate work at the University of Texas on the history of medicine in the African and African Diaspora Studies program, tells Axios.
Meanwhile, this year's UT freshman class is just as diverse as previous classes, owing largely to automatic admission of the state's top-ranked high school students.
Zoom in: At Dell Medical School in Austin, as of September 2024, 37% of students identify as white; 30.5% as Asian; 15% as Hispanic, Latino or of Spanish origin; 9% as Black or African American; and 3.5% as multiple races or ethnicities.
Axios has filed a request under the Texas Public Information Act for changes in those percentages over time.
Dell Med did not respond to an Axios interview request with the school dean.
The intrigue: The declines are "much larger than we would expect," even taking the Supreme Court decision into account, Norma Poll-Hunter, senior director of the Association of American Medical Colleges' human capital portfolio, tells Axios.
The bottom line: " Every doctor brings with them a unique perspective to the profession, and when certain populations are not fully represented, this means that there are certain questions, approaches, and care that are missing from the field," Herndon says.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Supreme Court Faces Decision on LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy
Supreme Court Faces Decision on LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy

Newsweek

timean hour ago

  • Newsweek

Supreme Court Faces Decision on LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments this fall in a case about whether it should uphold or overturn Colorado's ban on LGBTQ+ conversion therapy. Why It Matters More than 20 states have banned conversion therapy, the practice of trying to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling. The practice has drawn scrutiny from LGBTQ+ advocates and many medical professionals who say conversion therapy does not work, lacks a scientific basis and can impose harm on minors. The nation's highest court on Tuesday announced that it will hear arguments in the case Chiles v. Salazar on October 7, 2025. The ruling could have key implications for the legality of conversion therapy in the states that have banned the practice. It has drawn concerns within the community, as some are concerned that the conservative-leaning bench could require states to allow conversion therapy. What To Know The Supreme Court case focuses on Kaley Chiles, a counselor in Colorado who challenged the state's law prohibiting the use of conversion therapy on minors. In a petition to the Supreme Court, her attorneys wrote that she is a "licensed counselor who helps people by talking with them." The petition raised a First Amendment argument, accusing Colorado of trying to ban "consensual conversations based on the viewpoints they express." Proponents of the ban on conversion therapy point to statistics showing it can harm LGBTQ+ youth. A 2020 study from the Trevor Project found that minors who underwent conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to have reported suicide attempts and more than 2.5 times as likely to report multiple suicide attempts compared to those who did not. Supporters argue that the state has the authority to regulate health care services that put minors at risk. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Canva/Getty Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, argued in a filing that Court precedent "allows states to reasonably regulate professional conduct to protect patients from substandard treatment, even when that regulation incidentally burdens speech." "The Court of Appeals engaged in a straightforward application of this precedent to hold that the First Amendment allows states to regulate the professional practice of conversion therapy, like other unsafe and ineffective health care treatments, to protect minor patients from substandard professional care," he wrote. Former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi told Newsweek that the "Supreme Court's tea leaves seem to suggest that the Colorado law may be in peril." "That law proscribes alleged 'conversion therapy' by a professional counselor, whose sincere views are based on her Christian ideals and whose clients (adults and young people) actively seek her guidance because of their shared religious beliefs. To the Court, based on earlier cases, children are extremely vulnerable to the possible risks of such therapy and lack the maturity to accept or reject it," he said. However, the counselor argues that her First Amendment rights to "advise and assist her willing clients, who voluntarily wish to align their lives with their Christian faith, are unconstitutionally abridged by the broad state's law." "We shall see next year what the Court decides in this difficult case," Rossi said. Ryan Thoreson, a professor of law at the University of Cincinnati, told Newsweek he believes Colorado has strong arguments in favor of its ban, but that he is "skeptical this Court will uphold the state's conversion therapy ban in light of its recent First Amendment rulings." "The Roberts Court has been consistently solicitous toward free speech and religious exercise claims brought by conservative litigants, even when those claims undermine longstanding laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination and harm," he said. Colorado is likely to argue that it is "well-established that states can permissibly regulate the conduct of medical professionals, and can prohibit practices that fall below a certain standard of professional care." "And they can do so even when that conduct involves some amount of speech. While the state can't prevent private citizens from voicing their opinion that sexual orientation or gender identity can be changed, they can prevent licensed medical professionals from trying to promote or facilitate that change as part of their practice, especially in light of a large body of evidence showing that conversion therapy is damaging to young LGBT people's mental health," Thoreson said. Chiles, meanwhile, is likely to argue the law censors her speech based on her views about sexual orientation and gender identity. Generally, if the state is censoring speech based on content, it must pass a "heavy burden" to prove a "compelling interest in limiting the speech" and that the regulation is the least speech-restrictive way of achieving its interest, Thoreson said. Colorado likely would not be the only state affected, according to Thoreson. "What the Supreme Court decides in this case could also have seismic repercussions for state regulation of medical speech more generally. A broad First Amendment right of medical providers to say or recommend whatever they like without professional or legislative oversight, even when there is clear evidence that doing so is harmful, could open the door to pseudoscience and junk science in both medical and physical health care settings," he said. Jonathan Scruggs, senior counsel and vice president of litigation strategy at the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Chiles, told Newsweek that children should not be "forced into one-size-fits-all options when they're looking for counseling help." "They deserve real support, not just state-approved talking points. Our client Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado, works with her clients who voluntarily come to her with their goals to talk through what they are facing. Struggling kids deserve better than Colorado's law that pushes them toward harmful drugs and surgeries," he said. Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law, told Newsweek there is a "real risk that the outcome indeed may be here that the court strikes down a ban on conversion therapy for minors." "What we know from well established science and research is that there is no amount of talk or pressure that can make a gay person not gay, or a trans person not transgender," Levi said. "It's really important that licensed therapists don't abuse their position of trust to push an agenda that research has shown puts kids at high risk of suicide attempts and self harm." Levi said it is "always hard to anticipate the scope of the court's decision," but it is possible the ruling could have "quite significant" implications for other states that have banned the practice. Do Americans Support Conversion Therapy? A majority of Americans are opposed to conversion therapy, according to a poll from Data for Progress, which surveyed 1,155 likely voters from June 6 to June 8, 2025. Fifty-six percent of respondents said they agreed conversion therapy should be banned, while only 35 percent said they should be allowed to take place. Sixty-two percent of Democrats, 57 percent of independents and 49 percent of Republicans believed the practice should be banned. A December 2023 report from The Trevor Project found that there were 1,320 conversion therapy practitioners operating across the country, 605 of whom were operating under professional licenses. What Have Supreme Court Justices Said About Conversion Therapy? So far, at least one justice has signaled opposition to conversion therapy bans. After the court rejected a similar case out of Washington, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, writing, "There is a fierce public debate over how best to help minors with gender dysphoria. The petitioner, Brian Tingley, stands on one side of the divide. He believes that a person's sex is 'a gift from God, integral to our very being.'" Still, the court in 2023 rejected the challenge to a Washington law prohibiting conversion therapy. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled that the law was regulating mental health care, not the speech of the provider. The court's decision to reject that challenge left that ruling in place. In addition to Thomas, Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the rejection and would have heard the case. What People Are Saying Casey Pick, director of Law and Policy at The Trevor Project, told Newsweek: "The law at the heart of this case protects young people in Colorado from dangerous, discredited practices that have been proven to cause harm and increase suicide risk. This common-sense, bipartisan state law was put in place to prevent licensed mental health professionals from using these abusive practices on Colorado's youth; it really is that simple. "This law is squarely focused on ensuring that providers with government-issued licenses do not abuse the trust placed in them to subject minors to practices that have been rejected by every medical and mental health association in the country. We know that proponents of so-called conversion 'therapy' are making every attempt to impose an ideologically driven agenda. However, we remain hopeful that the justices will side with reason, evidence, and expertise, and uphold this effort by Colorado lawmakers to protect the health and safety of young people." Jonathan Scruggs, senior counsel and vice president of litigation strategy at the Alliance Defending Freedom, told Newsweek: "All who choose to live consistent with their biological sex are entitled to the help of counselors like Kaley as they work through that process. We hope the US Supreme Court will rule on the side of free speech and allow counselors like Kaley to work with her clients without the government mandating goals it prefers." Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, wrote in a statement in January: "In Colorado, we are committed to protecting professional standards of care so that no one suffers unscientific and harmful so-called gay conversion therapy. Colorado's judgment on this is the humane, smart, and appropriate policy and we're committed to defending." What Happens Next Oral arguments are set for October 7. The court has also been asked to weigh in on another major LGBTQ+ rights case. Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, has asked the court to revisit that ruling and overturn the national right to same-sex marriage. Legal experts told Newsweek that the case is a long shot, however.

B.C. doctor fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccine loses appeal
B.C. doctor fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccine loses appeal

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

B.C. doctor fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccine loses appeal

The B.C. Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal from a doctor who was fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021. Dr. Theresa Szezepaniak was appealing a 2023 decision from the B.C. Hospital Appeal Board (HAB), which largely upheld the Interior Health authority's decision to suspend her hospitalist privileges at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, B.C. The appeal board had ruled that Szezepaniak's refusal of the shot in 2021 amounted to neglect of her obligations as a hospitalist. Szezepaniak, who had to sell her home and move to a different town to find work after the decision, said that her Charter rights were breached by the HAB decision and asked a Supreme Court justice to set it aside. However, Justice Steven Wilson said the Charter did not apply to Interior Health's decision to suspend Szezepaniak's privileges, as it was an operational decision and not one that was directly controlled by government. "I do not accept that a hospital board's ability to exclude a practitioner from the hospital for failing to comply with the [bylaws] is a decision that is governmental in nature," his decision, published Thursday, read. Szezepaniak had argued that the HAB was upholding discipline based on government legislation, in which case her Charter-protected rights to life, liberty and security of the person — and specifically her right to earn an income to support her family — would have been breached. But the court disagreed, and said that even if the Charter were to apply to the HAB's decision, Szezepaniak's rights were not breached in this instance. That was because, the court noted, the Charter does not protect the right to work in a particular job or position, and Szezepaniak's firing was a result of her decision to not get vaccinated. Contract terminated Szezepaniak's contract with Interior Health was terminated on Nov. 16, 2021, after she declined the vaccine, which was required to continue working in B.C. hospitals under an order from Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry. Her privileges, which granted her the right to provide care at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, were officially cancelled by the health authority in August 2022, and Szezepaniak cited the Charter in an appeal to the HAB shortly thereafter. In both the current Supreme Court case and that HAB decision, the issue was not whether the doctor would be forced to get the vaccine — but rather, the consequences that arose from her decision to decline it. In a Nov. 20, 2023, decision, a HAB panel concluded that Interior Health didn't challenge Szezekpaniak's right to refuse the vaccine, but it did hold her accountable for the fact that that choice left her unable to work under provincial law. "Having the right to make a decision, and your right to do so acknowledged, or respected, is not the same as being held responsible for the consequences," the panel's decision reads. Although the appeal board did not reinstate Szezepaniak's hospitalist privileges, it found the health authority should have suspended rather than cancelled them in August 2022, saying Interior Health should have waited to cancel them if she wasn't vaccinated in time for her next annual review. 'Black mark' Szezepaniak, who is now based in 100 Mile House as a family physician, worked in B.C. hospitals for 21 years before she was fired. She said there was a "black mark" against her name due to the discipline that she received, and that she suffered significant emotional and financial consequences after the firing. Ultimately, however, the court found that the loss of income and her subsequent relocation to find work were not related to the discipline she received — but rather a consequence of her decision to not get the vaccine following the provincial order. Notice of liability A few days after Szezepaniak was barred from working, Royal Inland Hospital's chief of staff emailed to say there were three options for unvaccinated staff: obtain an exemption, resign, or face cancellation of their privileges. Szezepaniak replied with an email saying she would not be "blackmailed or coerced into receiving an experimental injection," the HAB panel decision says. On Nov. 12, a few days before she was fired, she sent an 18-page letter to a health authority manager titled, "NOTICE OF LIABILITY regarding the B.C. Government's Mandatory Testing/Vaccination Policy." Legal experts have previously told CBC News that these documents, favoured by groups opposed to COVID-related public health measures, have no legal value.

Study: Store-bought coffee has some contaminants, but remains safe
Study: Store-bought coffee has some contaminants, but remains safe

UPI

time2 hours ago

  • UPI

Study: Store-bought coffee has some contaminants, but remains safe

The Clean Label Project tested store-bought coffee and found it is mostly free of harmful levels of toxins and contaminants, but there's room for improvement. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo Your morning coffee is mostly free from harmful levels of toxins and contaminants, but a new investigation shows there's room for improvement. "While some contaminants were present, most were found at minimal levels and well below the European Union's safety limits per 6-ounce serving. This means coffee is generally safe," Molly Hamilton, executive director of the nonprofit Clean Label Project, which led the testing, told CNN. Research has linked drinking about 3 cups of black coffee a day to a lower risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, stroke, dementia and more. The Clean Label Project analyzed coffee from 45 popular brands grown in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Peru and Hawaii. More than 7,000 tests were run for pesticides, heavy metals, plasticizers and mold toxins. The results: Glyphosate: Traces of this widely used weed killer were found, along with "significant" amounts of aminomethylphosphonic acid, its byproduct. AMPA can persist in the environment and has been linked to DNA damage and liver inflammation. Phthalates: These plastic chemicals, linked to reproductive issues, childhood obesity, cancer and asthma, were detected in some coffees. Levels were highest in canned coffee, followed by pods, then bags. Heavy metals: Amounts varied by region, with African coffees having the lowest levels and Hawaiian coffees the highest, likely due to volcanic soil. Examples of heavy metals include lead, mercury and arsenic. Acrylamide: All samples contained small amounts of this chemical, which forms during roasting. It has been linked to cancer in animal studies but is not considered harmful to humans at low levels. Medium roasts had the most acrylamide, followed by light roasts, then dark roasts. Organic coffees generally had lower contaminant levels, but all 12 organic samples still contained AMPA. Hamilton said this could owe to runoff from nearby conventional farms. "Our next study is going to be analyzing the packaging assembly line," he said in a report from CNN. David Andrews is acting chief science officer for the Environmental Working Group. "The higher phthalate levels found in coffee pods and canned coffee suggest that packaging could be a meaningful source of exposure to these chemicals of concern," he told CNN. The National Coffee Association, however, pushed back, telling CNN that it's "highly irresponsible to mislead Americans about the safety of their favorite beverage." "Decades of independent scientific evidence show that coffee drinkers live longer, healthier lives," NCA President and CEO William "Bill" Murray said. Hamilton said coffee drinkers can limit contaminants by: Choosing darker or very light roasts Opting for coffee in bags or pods Considering where the coffee is grown "Caffeinated coffee is still one of the cleanest product categories we've ever tested," Hamilton said. "Our report isn't meant to raise alarm or keep consumers from drinking coffee, but rather to empower people on how to choose the cleanest, safest cup of coffee," he added. More information has more on light versus dark roast coffee. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store