"Pre-med is hard": An Evaluation of the Pre-Medical Experience for First-Generation and Low-Income Students

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Genre
Research project
Date
2024
Author
Symes, Elaina
Advisor
Olsen, Lauren D.
Group
Temple University. Honors Program
Department
Sociology
Subject
Pre-medical education
First-generation college students
Low-income students
Medical sociology
Social capital
Cultural capital
Pre-med advising
Stress
Higher education disparities
Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/10555

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DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10517
Abstract
Becoming a physician has historically been reserved for those with ample social and economic capital, but this is slowly changing with efforts to diversify the physician workforce. Much of the research regarding pre-medical education overlooks students with intersecting First Generation and Low Income (FGLI) identities and their unique challenges throughout medical education. This study describes the experiences of FGLI pre-medical students and how undergraduate institutions contribute to the discriminatory design of the medical school admissions process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with first-year pre-medical students to determine their knowledge of institutional resources, apprehensions about becoming physicians, and how their identities shape interactions with institutional resources. FGLI students reported more anticipatory stress towards the medical school admissions process, a desire for institutional resources better curated to FGLI students, and less academic support from family members than higher socioeconomic and continuing generation students. These findings call on universities to better support FGLI pre-medical students through individualized advising and mentoring programs while restructuring the institution’s biases toward FGLI students. The literature from the field overwhelmingly connects diversifying the physician workforce to lessening health disparities. However, solely relying on FGLI students to mitigate issues perpetuated by shortcomings in social infrastructure places an unfair burden of expectation. Physician diversity is not a fix-all but a piece of the puzzle to achieve health equity, which starts by reducing educational barriers at the undergraduate level.
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