After having a day to read through the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, some medical school and educational leaders are more hopeful that a path exists for them to diversify future classes and the health care workforce as they scramble to understand its impact on the next admissions cycle and the class of 2024.
Several told STAT they saw the court’s ruling as explicitly endorsing the use of “holistic review,” a tool used increasingly by medical, dental, and nursing schools and other institutions to build classes that better reflect the demographics of the nation. For years, medical schools have been seeking to train physicians who better resemble the patients they treat — a key part of the effort to reduce health disparities.
That’s not to say there wasn’t still a lot of criticism of the decision. The American Nurses Association said in a statement Friday its leaders were “appalled” by the ruling and said it “signals the continuation of systemic and structural racism which has inflicted generational discriminatory trauma in terms of lack of access and academic and professional advancement.” The decision would no doubt impact nursing admissions processes, it said.
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