Internal Medicine Clerkship Analysis

“Hey, how did you get here?” that was a confusing question posed by a nineteen-year-old Hispanic patient with abdominal pain. This interaction occurred during the first week of my third-year internal medicine clerkship. Since he was starting a community college, he was unaware of the process of becoming a doctor. The patient wanted to understand how I became a medical student. I responded by stressing the importance of volunteering, attending a competitive school, and taking the MCAT.

As the clerkship progressed, this interaction lingered in my mind. I thought about the intersectionality of poverty, poor education and lack of available mentors that contributed to the paucity of minorities in medicine. Also, this interaction reminded me of