Student stories show power of med school diversity

John Robinson knows firsthand what bigotry feels like.

When Robinson was first considering a career in medicine, his college adviser told him he wasn’t cut out for it. 

“I emailed my pre-med adviser to ask what I could do to improve my chances of getting in, and I got a very dismissive email back,” he said. “She didn’t give me any advice. I was just told I wouldn’t be a competitive applicant. I hadn’t even taken the MCAT yet. That was the day I almost gave up on wanting to pursue a career in medicine.” 

But Robinson, who’s now a fourth-year medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina, didn’t give up. He let it motivate him. “I printed the email out and put it up where I was studying for my Step 1 board exam. Whenever I got tired and felt like I couldn’t study any more, I looked at that email.”

His is just one of many stories behind MUSC’s recent ranking by U.S. News & World Report as fifth out of U.S. medical colleges for number of African-American students. The survey did not include historically black colleges and universities or take into account the overall size of the student population. Ranked proportionally, MUSC would have placed second of the schools on the list – for the 2015-2016 academic year, almost 12 percent of MUSC medical students identified as African- American and another five percent as other underrepresented minorities.  

For Robinson and Lance Braye, another fourth-year medical student, those numbers aren’t incidental or abstract. They’re fundamental to MUSC’s mission, and they represent something many of their peers never got: a shot. 

“MUSC really has changed my life,” Robinson said. “There’ll be hard days ahead, but when I think of where I was three years ago, it really puts it in perspective.” 

Three years ago, Robinson was taking drive-through orders at Taco Bell, working his way through a medical college admission test (MCAT) preparatory course and trying to save money for medical school. His friends still call him “Dr. Taco.” 

Growing up in Simpsonville, a small town in upstate South Carolina, Robinson struggled with issues of race and identity, something he said is all too common for young black men who excel academically. 

A high school psychology teacher, Valarie Connor, first sparked Robinson’s interest in medicine, and she encouraged him to pursue his dreams.

“She would bring in videos of neurosurgery, which fascinated me,” he said. 

Still, he felt pressure to fit in. “It was tough. A lot of people would give me a hard time. They would say, ‘You sound white.’ But, I couldn’t let somebody else determine my future.”

He doesn’t necessarily blame his peers. Their hostility, he believes, came from a place of jealousy and despair at their own lack of opportunities. “They think, ‘If I can’t do something, why should you?’” he explained. 

Connor said Robinson was bullied for taking on more advanced classes, such as her advanced placement psychology course. “John was an excellent student,” she said. “He became fascinated with physiological aspects of behavior and was eager to learn all he could about the human brain.”

Her pride is evident when she speaks of her former student. “I consider myself blessed to have had the opportunity to have John in my class, and I consider myself even more blessed now to have the opportunity to call him my friend.” 

Because of his encounter with bullying, Robinson is committed to reaching out and serving as a mentor and role model to others going through similar experiences. “I want to be the person I wish I would have had,” he said. 

Where Robinson is the first in his family to pursue medicine, Braye “grew up in the hospital.”

Braye was born in the Bronx, one of New York City’s busiest boroughs. His mother was an oncology nurse. His parents had divorced early in his childhood, though his father was present for holidays, summers and major life events. “Until my stepdad and younger brother came along, it was just me, her and my sister for the most part,” he said.

When Braye was four, his family moved to Walterboro, South Carolina, a town with a special place in African-American history. During World War II, it served as an alternate training site for the famous Tuskegee Airmen, a group of all black pilots who fought racism as well as the Nazis. Today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly a third of African-Americans in Colleton County, of which Walterboro is a part, live below the poverty line. Those numbers are even worse for single-parent households like Braye’s, although he is thankful his family never went without. 

After moving to South Carolina, Braye’s mother worked at MUSC on the nightshift but later transferred to work days and be closer to home. “When I was in third grade, she got a job in Walterboro and eventually became director of the surgery center there,” he explained. 

On days when Braye didn’t have football or band practice, his mother would pick him and his sister up from school, and the pair would do homework in the waiting room or at the nurses station while she finished her duties. 

He said he didn’t appreciate until later how much of a role model his mother was to him. “She was a superwoman,” he said. 

Growing up in the hospital had other advantages. “We got to know a lot of the doctors as family friends,” Braye said. “So, medicine was always on my radar. Going to med school has always been the plan.” 

But, plans can change. At any point, Robinson and Braye’s dreams could have easily fizzled in the face of prejudice. That both men made it, against the odds, says something about their commitment and passion for medicine. But, not everyone is as lucky. 

“If you just look at the stats, we shouldn’t be here,” Braye said. “I especially shouldn’t be here, as an African-American male who grew up in a single-parent household. That’s the danger of reducing people to numbers. We’re more than patterns and studies. Every life is different.”

Those numbers don’t paint a rosy picture. African-Americans, and African-American men in particular, are severely underrepresented in medicine. Fewer black men applied to medical school in 2014 than in 1978, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Almost a fifth of black high school sophomores reported aspiring to be a doctor in 2002, but when surveyed again in 2012, only a fraction had actually made it.  

“Growing up, I never saw any black doctors,” Robinson said. “It would have been easy to think, ‘I can’t do this because of who I am.’” 

Such lack of representation creates a vicious cycle that keeps underrepresented minorities from pursuing medicine and other science careers, he explained. 

The AAMC agrees. It recently published a blistering report, titled “Altering the Course,” on the state of black men in medicine. That report cited a lack of representation and role models, as well as public perceptions and media images that portray black men negatively, for setting lower expectations and stunting academic and professional careers. 

The report also highlighted the fact that African-American children are disproportionately educated at underperforming schools in districts with fewer resources. The performance gap between white and black children may start small in elementary school, but by high school, it’s often become a chasm. 

Robinson was determined he wouldn’t fall into that chasm. He worked hard – eight years in total – saving up the $400 it cost to attend his summer program at USC, just as he worked for the $250 it cost to take the MCAT and for the $2,000 MCAT prep course he took online through Kaplan University, a for-profit college.

His pre-med adviser never asked why he wanted to practice medicine, never saw his passion for the field. She just reduced him to a number, Robinson said. He wants to make sure that experience, which he believes is all too common, doesn’t happen to anyone else. He views challenging such stereotypes as a large part of his work as a doctor. 

Braye does too. “It starts with better role models and better advice,” he said. “I think young men like ourselves are accused of ‘sounding white’ because some people don’t associate academic success with brown skin, and that’s a problem.”

Both Braye and Robinson are mentors in the Student Mentors for Minorities in Medicine (SM³) program and encourage others to volunteer as well. One of Robinson’s mentees was just accepted to Harvard, a fact he shares with pride. 

“If we ask ourselves why we’re in medicine, it often goes back to one person – my mother or John’s teacher, Ms. Connor – people who inspired us along our journey by taking the time to give back,” Braye said. “All of us are only here because someone helped us out. It makes no sense for us not to do something in return. It’s only right.”

Like Robinson, Braye participated in pipeline programs, including a six-week MCAT prep course, a 100-hour internship and a weeklong health careers academy where he shadowed physicians and participated in mock lectures at MUSC. Braye’s programs, however, were sponsored by MUSC and the South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium and completely free of charge.

Those sort of initiatives are paying off. With 19 percent underrepresented students, the class of 2020 will be the most diverse in MUSC’s history.  

“The great thing about MUSC is that the faculty really cares, and they understand the impact diversity initiatives have on the community,” Braye said. “We’re scientists. We’re people who solve problems. When you have students who care about diversity, faculty who care about diversity, and we’re all working together – it’s amazing.”