New medical school boasts diverse inaugural class

LAS CRUCES - When the founders of the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine first contemplated building a medical school in southern New Mexico, they hired nationally recognized consulting firm Tripp Umbach to conduct a feasibility study. The study found that this region not only has a critical shortage of health care providers, but that the current physician workforce “does not represent the regional population ethnicity and is less able to deliver culturally competent care.”

Plans to change that were immediately put into BCOM’s mission.

Part of the solution, said founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer George Mychaskiw II, DO, is tailoring the curriculum with language courses and topics relevant to the border region’s populations.

“Our students will learn medical Spanish. Our students will learn about Native American healing practices. All of our students will be given the opportunity to train at health clinics serving a Native nation or pueblo. They’ll be more comfortable and better prepared to live and work in the area,” he said.

Another part of the solution involves admitting students who already understand those cultures. The school’s Burrell Expedited Admission Review (BEAR) Pathway program encourages students from New Mexico, El Paso, southern Arizona, all American Indian and Alaskan Native tribal nations, and Chihuahua, Mexico, to apply directly to BCOM for admission and bypass the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine’s application process.

Adrian Alba, BCOM’s director of admissions, says recruitment efforts also focus on other races and ethnicities that are underrepresented in the physician workforce.

Antonia Novello, MD, gave the keynote address at BCOM’s recent White Coat Ceremony, a rite of passage during which the new students receive the traditional physician’s white coat and are officially welcomed into the medical profession.

Novello, the 14th U.S. surgeon general, is the first woman and first Hispanic to hold the prestigious position. In her address, Novello spoke to providing “culturally humble” care, giving the new students insights she’s picked up over her 46 years in the medical field on communicating effectively with minority patients, and reminding the newest members of the health care community that “your patients will not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Novello also gave praise to BCOM for admitting more Native Americans than any other osteopathic school in the United States. “God will help you in your vision of diversification in the medical field because you have shown that you can walk the walk and not just talk the talk,” she said.

The Native American students are members of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, north of Santa Fe, and the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Although this may seem small, at 2 percent of the entering class, this is 10 times the number admitted to an average U.S. medical school. Burrell College’s class of 2020 is also 46 percent female, 19 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent African American. There are students of Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Filipino, Tanzanian, and Nigerian descent, making BCOM’s class one of the most diverse of any osteopathic medical school.

In addition to Native Americans, BCOM has admitted more than four times the number of Hispanic students and double the number of African American students, relative to an average U.S. medical school.

At the ceremony, BCOM President John Hummer noted in his welcome speech that diversity is one of the greatest strengths in this region of the country.

“My family and I have lived all over and it’s truly like none other we’ve ever experienced,” he said.

To welcome this diverse group of students to the community, the invocations at the ceremony were offered by Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, Christian, and Islamic spiritual leaders. A rabbi conveyed remarks of support, but was unable to attend because of the Sabbath.

BCOM also made history as the first medical school to have students swear the Osteopathic Oath in not one, but three languages. President Russell Begaye of the Navajo Nation led the students in reciting the oath in Navajo, solidifying BCOM’s commitment to addressing the health needs of Native American populations. Dr. Jesus Guadalupe Benavides Olivera, director of the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua’s medical school, led the oath in Spanish, and Adrienne White-Faines, CEO of the American Osteopathic Association, led it in English.

Following this trailblazing ceremony, the new physicians-in-training are now hitting the books. Classes are now officially underway at BCOM.