Hitting their strides
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As a high school student in Suffolk, Virginia, Wayne Cochran fell in love with chemistry.
The exposure to a new way of seeing and understanding the world — along with the potential with every experiment for a radical transformation — dazzled him and energized his naturally curious mind.
After school, Cochran volunteered in a local hospital’s emergency department where he experienced a different rush, one generated by clinical care and patient interactions. He leaned into the organized chaos of the ER and absorbed the adrenaline of medical teams as they hurried to help others.
“This is what I want to do,” Cochran remembers thinking as he observed physicians. “Find a way to use that combination of classroom study and insight with actual hands-on experience.”
When Cochran earned admission to Norfolk State’s prestigious Dozoretz National Institute for Mathematics and Applied Sciences, he felt closer to achieving his dream of becoming a physician — even though, up until that point, he’d interacted with few doctors who looked like him.
“Black men and women don’t make up a large percentage of the healthcare workforce,” Cochran explains. “I didn’t necessarily have someone I could go to for advice. It felt like it was just me, finding a path on my own.”
Thanks to an EVMS Diversity and Inclusion-led initiative that aims to increase the number of talented Black students entering the health professions, Cochran now has a defined path and plenty of companionship along his way.
Cochran — who will matriculate to EVMS as an MD student in Fall 2024 after graduating from NSU this spring — is one of 14 members of the inaugural cohort of the L.D. Britt Pre-Medical Scholars program.
Named in honor of L.D. Britt, MD, MPH, a pioneering surgeon, researcher, educator and the Chair of EVMS Surgery, the initiative brings in students from historically Black universities in Hampton Roads with whom EVMS has an established BS/MD program. It was started through a five-year grant from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation and also has been supported by the Sentara Cares Foundation.
“One of the most important aspects of this program is that we get to the students early,” says Mekbib Gemeda, EdD, EVMS’ former Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion, who launched the program in 2020. “They start experiencing what it means to be part of the medical and health professions field from their first semester in college.”
Representation matters
Cochran’s experience of not seeing Black mentors in healthcare is common. Only about 8% of Virginia’s roughly 22,800 active physicians identify as African American, making the ratio of Black doctors to Black patients within the commonwealth about one to 1,000, according to the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC).
“We have a shortage of health professionals overall in the United States, and we do not have enough diversity in the field,” Dr. Gemeda says. “A growing body of research shows us why diversity is important. For one thing, medical professionals from underrepresented minority backgrounds tend to work in geographic areas where the need is higher. Minority patients also tend to experience better health outcomes when they work with a physician from a similar background.”
When it comes to the relationship between patient and provider race, “studies have shown correlations including a reduction in infant mortality, greater patient adherence to healthcare guidelines, higher patient satisfaction and better patient understanding of cancer risks,” according to AAMC research. A separate 2023 study of county-level data, led by the Health Resources and Services Administration, found that for every 10% increase in the representation of Black primary care physicians, Black patients experience 30.6 days of greater life expectancy.
“Diversity in medical education is important for many reasons,” says Thomas Kimble, MD, Assistant Vice Dean of Admissions and Enrollment and an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “It’s good for students and instructors to be in a classroom with people who are from different backgrounds. We pick up on and start to better understand cultural differences. We learn from each other together.”
A ‘mini medical school’
During their time in the program, Britt Pre-Medical Scholars experience what can amount to a mini-medical school opportunity. They learn alongside EVMS faculty, students and residents and engage in enrichment and mentoring opportunities in clinical-based human anatomy while also receiving hands-on experience in ultrasound, suturing and simulated patient care and taking part in research initiatives.
The students also participate in summer clinical rotations in surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, otorhinolaryngology, psychology and family medicine. In addition, students dedicate time to early MCAT prep and leverage longitudinal mentoring and advisement and portfolio review starting their freshman year. During their sophomore year, they apply to their respective BS/MD programs.
For the past several years, Natascha Heise, PhD, Assistant Professor Pathology and Anatomy, has played a key role in organizing the students’ activities at EVMS. She is impressed by their dedication.
“These are undergraduate students who already have a pre-medical heavy course load,” Dr. Heise says. “They show up to every event and do their best. Nothing compares to their motivation.”
Gary Ohanian, MD (MD ’16, Family Medicine Residency ’19), Associate Director of EVMS’ Family Medicine Residency program, says the pre-medical scholars enrich the lives of EVMS volunteers.
“I was surprised by how many of our residents wanted to be involved,” he explains, noting that up to 20 EVMS residents interact with the scholars during each rotation. “It’s extra work for them, but the program itself has been so well received. The students are willing to put themselves out there as they learn. In turn, the residents are committed to giving the students a better understanding of what it means to be a physician.”
Amber Austin, a junior at Hampton University, has seen that commitment firsthand from myriad EVMS representatives, including Medical Master’s students, who assist pre-medical scholars with case studies.
“My interactions with those students were some of my favorite experiences,” Austin says. “I gained a lot of knowledge about anatomy by working with mentors in that group.”
Shifting paradigms
NSU senior Myles Parks-Tiller says the experience of participating in the program has been formative.
“It means a lot to me to be welcomed into EVMS and encouraged along this really hard, historically denied path,” says Parks-Tiller, who, like Cochran, will matriculate to EVMS. “It will be interesting to come back 10, 20 or even 30 years down the line to look at our cohort and to see how many people went on to a career in healthcare and who maintained this foundational connection because of EVMS.”
Some impacts of the program are more immediately recognizable, says Dr. Kimble.
“Because of the program, we went from having hardly any MD applicants from Norfolk State University to the situation today, where NSU represents the largest cohort in our BS/MD program,” he says. “These students are top-notch, eager-to-learn go-getters. Honestly, they’ve blown us away.”
Dr. Gemeda says he is excited the program has become part of EVMS’ community-engaged legacy.
“I’m proud of these students,” Dr. Gemeda says. “I’m also proud of the EVMS faculty, staff and residents who have put their hearts into this program to ensure that our scholars feel welcome here and at home in medicine. We’re helping them project — to see their future selves and careers — and that is huge. It’s very difficult to become something, or someone, you do not regularly see.”
Pictured at top: Dr. Britt with scholars (from left) Wayne Cochran, Myles Parks-Tiller and Amber Austin.