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When Raekwon Timmons, a student in the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine’s (91�㽶��Ƶ) Class of 2023, heard about the documentary Black Men in White Coats, he felt a pang of recognition. The statistics highlighted in the film — for example, that only 2 percent of U.S. physicians are black males, or that fewer black males applied to U.S. medical schools in 2014 than in 1978 — rang true to his personal experience.

“In my own experience, it has been difficult to find black male physicians in West Virginia,” said Timmons, who is one of only three black male students in his 91�㽶��Ƶ class and the only black male student in the class who hails from West Virginia, of students who self-reported their racial identity to the school. “The lack of representation in the medical field may be a reason fewer African American men are applying to medical school. It’s hard to be something you can’t see, and that’s why more diversity is needed.”

Timmons was fortunate to grow up with a health professional as a role model. He discovered at a young age that few of his schoolmates were similarly exposed to people with careers in health care.

“The primary provider in my household was a registered nurse who worked mainly in home health care. There were many times I went to see patients with her, especially if she was on call. I was exposed to the medical field early, and it allowed me at age 5 to set a goal of becoming a doctor,” Timmons said. “When I started public school, I learned almost immediately that my peers didn’t have the same experiences. I would try to talk about medical stuff at recess and they never had any idea what I was talking about.”

Black Men in White Coats dissects the systemic barriers preventing black males from becoming physicians and the consequences those barriers have on society. The film was created by Dale Okorodudu, M.D., a Texas-based pulmonary and critical care physician who also authored a book of the same name. Through these and related projects, Okorodudu seeks to increase the number of black males in medicine via exposure, inspiration and mentoring.

91�㽶��Ƶ’s Diversity Committee and Student National Medical Association (SNMA) chapter sponsored a virtual screening of the documentary earlier this year, followed by an online discussion led by Timmons, who is president of the school’s SNMA chapter. Among the many arguments the film presents in favor of increasing the number of black physicians in the U.S., one of the most critical is that health disparities exist for the African American community that might partially be a result of cultural mistrust of an overwhelmingly nonblack medical workforce.

That’s why it’s important for medical students to receive education on diversity-related issues, Timmons said, and why he has made it a goal to play a part in bringing more diversity education to 91�㽶��Ƶ’s student body during his time at the school.

“The patient population is diverse,” he said. “I believe every student could build better rapport with patients from an underrepresented minority if they are educated on some of the obstacles people in that group face.”

Increasing awareness of the lack of black male representation is just one of many efforts 91�㽶��Ƶ has made in recent years toward a more equitable environment. The school updated the policies of its long-standing Diversity Committee, made up of faculty, staff and students, in 2017 to help fulfill its commitment to fostering an environment that values the development of human potential, cultural and ethnic diversity, and understanding. A subcommittee — the Cultural Integration Committee — consists of students who work with other student organizations to ensure they incorporate diversity into their activities.

Besides establishing the Diversity Committee and creating school chapters of organizations such as the SNMA, 91�㽶��Ƶ has worked toward an inclusive culture via training programs and admissions initiatives. James W. Nemitz, Ph.D., 91�㽶��Ƶ’s president, said the school is continually looking for ways to reach underrepresented groups and to encourage cultural awareness.

“While 91�㽶��Ƶ’s numbers for underrepresented minorities are not where we want them, the overall diversity of our student body has changed dramatically. Our diversity demographic has ranged from 27 to 32 percent of our student body in recent years,” Nemitz said.

Rebecca Morrow, Ph.D., 91�㽶��Ƶ’s assistant dean for student affairs and Diversity Committee chair, has played an integral role in the school’s implementation of programs sponsored through Diversity for Equity grants from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. She said increasing awareness of underrepresented groups is a critical part of educating students to treat their future patients.

“When we are part of a diverse group of people, we have the opportunity to listen and learn about experiences and perspectives that are different from our own,” Morrow said. “This is especially important for our students as they prepare to go out into the world to make a critical impact on the health of their communities. In practicing the skills of listening to and learning from other members of the 91�㽶��Ƶ community whose identities are different from their own, students will be prepared to engage in an authentic, open conversation with patients.”

During the 2015-16 academic year, following a 2014 campus climate survey that identified a need for students to be aware of diversity in general, 91�㽶��Ƶ hosted a student-coordinated series on LGBTQ+ issues in patient care. The series ranged from general information about social inequality to specific medical issues pertaining to patients who identify as LGBTQ+. Since then, 91�㽶��Ƶ students have hosted an educational series on topics related to the LGBTQ+ community on an annual basis.

In 2017-18, 91�㽶��Ƶ students developed and presented a series on culture and medicine that allowed them to practice communicating with standardized patients with cultural backgrounds or identity categories that differed from their own.

In 2018-19, the school presented a program called “My Statewide Campus Experience in Rural West Virginia” in which third- and fourth-year students of diverse identities spoke to first- and second-year students about their rotations in rural communities and how they were received by community members. The Cultural Integration Committee presented “Difficult Conversations: Considering Identities in Healthcare,” a series focusing on how patient identity categories factor into ethical decisions in health care, and hosted an unconscious bias training session in which participants reflected on their unconscious biases, where those biases came from and how they react when the biases are triggered, in order to self-reflect and learn tools to use to mitigate those biases.

Programs during the 2019-20 academic year included “Difficult Dialogues” training sessions in which staff from the West Virginia Center for Civic Life invited participants to practice different types of conversational formats that can help maintain civil dialogue. Additionally, a series on medical Spanish and Latinx cultures helped students learn basic medical Spanish phrases to better serve patients with that native language, understand how socioeconomic status and ethnicity intersect with access to the health care system and hear the experiences of those who have served on mission trips in majority Spanish-speaking areas, among other topics.

Most recently, 91�㽶��Ƶ’s Diversity Committee implemented a “Developing Effective Allyship” training to help members of the 91�㽶��Ƶ community consider what it means to be an ally, identify the difficulties some members of identity-based groups experience and explain how allies can support members of those groups. Participants could choose from among four “tracks” of online allyship instruction pertaining to the categories of disability, LGBTQ+ identity, race or sex. Morrow said that 40 students and 10 employees at 91�㽶��Ƶ completed the early 2021 training.

Among those who completed the allyship training was Class of 2024 student and 91�㽶��Ƶ Pride Alliance representative Ashnee Patel, who said there have been times in her life when she has observed people being treated unfairly because of their appearance or the way they identify, and that as a member of an underrepresented group herself, she has been the target of similar incidents. She said she thought the training was particularly useful for medical students.

“It included perspectives most people don’t think about, and it was nice that it was framed as allyship, because it got us thinking about what we can do in everyday life to help those who can’t always be their own advocates,” Patel said. “It’s important for those of us in the medical profession, because we’re going to see patients from many different backgrounds and it’s essential for us to be aware of internal biases that might hinder our ability to care for people.”

91�㽶��Ƶ also works to foster a more diverse environment through admissions initiatives. Staff in the Office of Admissions annually visit historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) for recruiting events, including West Virginia State University and Bluefield State College in West Virginia, Hampton University and Norfolk State University in Virginia and Howard University in Washington, D.C., as well as HBCUs in Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Delaware and Alabama. Additionally, staff attend predominately minority programs and fairs such as the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, the National Hispanic Medical Association Fair, the National Association of Medical Minority Educators Fair and the regional and national conferences of the SNMA.

“We want to recruit a diverse population. If you have people who are all the same culture and race, it could lead to stagnancy of ideas,” said Danny Seams, 91�㽶��Ƶ’s assistant director of admissions. “Our goal is to encourage students to come to our campus and see our facilities, because they’ve probably been to Philadelphia, New York, D.C. — but how many people of color have been to southern West Virginia? If they visit and discover for themselves what it’s like here, they may be more likely to choose to attend 91�㽶��Ƶ.”

Seams and Ronnie Collins, 91�㽶��Ƶ’s director of admissions, said 91�㽶��Ƶ has established positive relationships with administrators at a number of HBCUs, and that a pipeline program at one or more of those schools would be an effective way to recruit more students of color. Within West Virginia, Collins and Seams also hope to look at ways 91�㽶��Ƶ can pique the interest of students prior to their undergraduate years in cities and towns with higher nonwhite populations.

Attracting students to West Virginia isn’t always an easy task According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 6.5 percent of West Virginia’s population is nonwhite, and Collins said fear of being viewed as an outsider can keep some students from choosing the school.

“A lot of prospective students go online and look at the demographics of areas they’re considering so that they’re aware of who lives here, and ours is largely a white community,” Collins said. “But attracting underrepresented groups is important, because you want medical school to be like the real world. In the real world, a physician is going to have patients from diverse backgrounds, so having exposure in medical school is a great benefit. The idea is to go into high schools and maybe even elementary schools to make members of underrepresented groups aware that, ‘Hey, you can do this.’”

And providing that sort of inspiration is at the heart of the Black Men in White Coats documentary, Raekwon Timmons said.

“To do better, we must know better,” Timmons said. “Though the film focuses on the barriers black men face while pursuing a career in medicine, it’s also motivating. Seeing a person who looks like me in a white coat reassures me that I can achieve the same goal. Given West Virginia’s lack of diversity, I think 91�㽶��Ƶ is doing an excellent job of recruiting minority students.”

Timmons said he is pleased to be able to play a part in guiding younger students toward receiving the medical education they’ve dreamed of.

“I didn’t come to medical school with the intent of being a role model. It just kind of happened naturally,” he said. “I’m actively mentoring a few African American pre-med students from my alma mater, Marshall University. I’d like to be a role model for future African American men who apply to 91�㽶��Ƶ.”

Nemitz said he’s proud of the progress the school has made toward a more diverse learning environment, but he’s aware that the work is far from complete.

“The bottom line is that 91�㽶��Ƶ has made a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion,” Nemitz said. “Do we need to do more? Absolutely. And we are trying to do more.”